Help with increased precision.

I am trying to input a large number into a variable like so a=73167176531330624919225119674426574742355349194934.

However the problem is though that matlab doesn't store nunmbers with enough precision to hold the entire number in a single variable.

I've tried using vpa but that hans't help.

Can anyone give me a solution?

Answer 1

[John D'Errico]

NO. You don't use vpa. No need to do that, and in fact, vpa would be the wrong tool to use anyway.

This works fine though.

a = sym('73167176531330624919225119674426574742355349194934')
a =
73167176531330624919225119674426574742355349194934

>> a + 2
ans =
73167176531330624919225119674426574742355349194936

You could also have used my VPI toolbox, but syms are faster than VPI. (That was not always the case as I recall, when I was first developing VPI.) And since you have the symbolic toobox anyway, just use it, properly, as I did there.

[alexander cooke]

Works perfectly.