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Multiple‐length division revisited: A tour of the minefield
Author(s) -
Hansen Per Brinch
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.4380240605
Subject(s) - division (mathematics) , cobol , computer science , terminology , primality test , pascal (unit) , arithmetic , theoretical computer science , cryptography , programming language , calculus (dental) , algorithm , mathematics , discrete mathematics , linguistics , prime number , philosophy , medicine , dentistry
Long division of natural numbers plays a crucial role in Cobol arithmetic, cryptography, and primality testing. Only a handful of textbooks discuss the theory and practice of long division, and none of them do it satisfactorily. This tutorial attempts to fill this surprising gap in the literature on computer algorithms. We illustrate the subtleties of long division by examples, define the problem concisely, summarize the theory, and develop a complete Pascal algorithm using a consistent terminology.