Printing very big BigIntegers

Question

I'm trying to figure out the following issue related to BigIntegers in Java 7 x64. I am attempting to calculate a number to an extremely high power. Code is below, followed by a description of the problem. ``` import java.math.BigInteger; public class main { public static void main(String[] args) { // Demo calculation; Desired calculation: BigInteger("4096").pow(800*600) BigInteger images = new BigInteger("2").pow(15544); System.out.println( "The number of possible 16 bpc color 800x600 images is: " + images.toString()); } } ``` I am encountering issues printing the result of this operation. When this code executes it prints the message but not the value of `images.toString()`. To isolate the problem I started calculating powers of two instead of the desired calculation listed in the comment on that line. On the two systems I have tested this on, `2^15544` is the smallest calculation that triggers the problem; `2^15543` works fine. I'm no where close to hitting the memory limit on the…

Accepted Answer

The problem is a bug of the Console view in Eclipse.

On my setup, Eclipse (Helios and Juno) can't show a single line longer than 4095 characters without CRLF. The maximum length can vary depending on your font choice - see below.

Therefore, even the following code will show the problem - there's no need for a `BigInteger`.

```
StringBuilder str = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < 4096; i++) {
    str.append('?');
}
System.out.println(str);
```

That said, the string is actually printed in the console - you can for instance copy it out of it. It is just not shown.

As a workaround, you can set `Fixed width console` setting in Console preferences, the string will immediatelly appear:

The corresponding bugs on Eclipse's bugzilla are:

- Display problem in console when a line reaches 4096 characters

- Texteditor can't show a line with more than 4095 chars. Limit at 4096 chars.

- Long lines are not displayed by editor

According to those, it's a Windows/GTK bug and Eclipse's developers can't do anything about it.

The bug is related to the length of the text is pixels, use a smaller font and you will be able to get more characters in the text before it breaks.

Printing very big BigIntegers

Solution

Problem