[erlang-questions] Problems with math:sqrt module

[Mark Wagner]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 11:13, Greg Perry<Greg.Perry@REDACTED> wrote:
> I found what appears to be a problem with the multi precision math capabilities of Erlang, math:sqrt works fine for fairly large numbers but errors with a 2048 bit semiprime number, for example:
>
> 11> math:sqrt(3583144093694177840015703951812811819685389811654227013562705143239732783869692090471778208318589531694265620448681377942529266640295861138161515558643627087037345328746390159109263363877363094390).                                              5.985936930585034e97
>
> ...works fine, but a 2048 bit number does not:
>
> 12> math:sqrt(358314409369417784001570395181281181968538981165422701356270514323973278386969209047177820831858953169426562044868137794252926664029586113816151555864362708703734532874639015910926336387736309439085113066643724657508768560218902742830031805141689201216753646475132835879627107400965023578409921487110512182961741061327409228793561655530765043642780534852247342070264867175687046721404689620610752507).
> ** exception error: bad argument in an arithmetic expression
>     in function  math:sqrt/1
>        called as math:sqrt(358314409369417784001570395181281181968538981165422701356270514323973278386969209047177820831858953169426562044868137794252926664029586113816151555864362708703734532874639015910926336387736309439085113066643724657508768560218902742830031805141689201216753646475132835879627107400965023578409921487110512182961741061327409228793561655530765043642780534852247342070264867175687046721404689620610752507)
> 13>
>
> any ideas?
>

As I recall, the math: functions are wrappers to the underlying C
library.  If you're working on a typical IEEE 754 floating-point
system and you've got a number larger than 10^308, you get overflow
errors.