Working with large and small integers
Many programming languages make a distinction between integers, bytes, and long integers. Some languages include distinctions for signed versus unsigned integers. How do we map these concepts to Python?
The easy answer is that we don't. Python handles integers of all sizes in a uniform way. From bytes to immense numbers with hundreds of digits, they're all integers to Python.
Getting ready
Imagine you need to calculate something really big. For example, we want to calculate the number of ways to permute the cards in a 52-card deck. The factorial 52! = 52 × 51 × 50 × ... × 2 × 1, is a very, very large number. Can we do this in Python?
How to do it...
Don't worry. Really. Python has one universal type of integer, and this covers all of the bases, from individual bytes to numbers that fill all of the memory. Here are the steps to use integers properly:
- Write the numbers you need...
