System.Numerics.BigInteger lets you multiply large integers together, but is there anything of the same type for floating point numbers? If not, is there a free library I can use?
//this but with floats
System.Numerics.BigInteger maxint = new BigInteger(int.MaxValue);
System.Numerics.BigInteger big = maxint * maxint * maxint;
System.Console.WriteLine(big);
Perhaps you're looking for BigRational? Microsoft released it under their BCL project on CodePlex. Not actually sure how or if it will fit your needs.
It keeps it as a rational number. You can get the a string with the decimal value either by casting or some multiplication.
var r = new BigRational(5000, 3768);
Console.WriteLine((decimal)r);
Console.WriteLine((double)r);
Or with a simple(ish) extension method like this:
public static class BigRationalExtensions
{
public static string ToDecimalString(this BigRational r, int precision)
{
var fraction = r.GetFractionPart();
// Case where the rational number is a whole number
if(fraction.Numerator == 0 && fraction.Denominator == 1)
{
return r.GetWholePart() + ".0";
}
var adjustedNumerator = (fraction.Numerator
* BigInteger.Pow(10, precision));
var decimalPlaces = adjustedNumerator / fraction.Denominator;
// Case where precision wasn't large enough.
if(decimalPlaces == 0)
{
return "0.0";
}
// Give it the capacity for around what we should need for
// the whole part and total precision
// (this is kinda sloppy, but does the trick)
var sb = new StringBuilder(precision + r.ToString().Length);
bool noMoreTrailingZeros = false;
for (int i = precision; i > 0; i--)
{
if(!noMoreTrailingZeros)
{
if ((decimalPlaces%10) == 0)
{
decimalPlaces = decimalPlaces/10;
continue;
}
noMoreTrailingZeros = true;
}
// Add the right most decimal to the string
sb.Insert(0, decimalPlaces