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MATLAB Can't Manipulate 64-Bit Integers

Posted by kdawson on from the does-not-compute dept.

An anonymous reader writes "MATLAB, an important package of mathematical software heavily used in industry and academia, has had support for 64-bit machines for several years now. However, the MATLAB developers still haven't gotten around to implementing even basic arithmetic operations for 64-bit integers. Attempting to add, divide, subtract, or multiply two 64-bit integers will result in an error message saying that the corresponding method does not exist. As one commentator put it, 'What is the point of having numerical data types that can't be manipulated?'" The post notes that the free MATLAB clone GNU Octave deals with 64-bit integers just fine.

7 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. Negative Slashvertisment? by XPeter · · Score: 2, Funny

    Am I missing something here?

    --
    "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
    1. Re:Negative Slashvertisment? by mgblst · · Score: 5, Funny

      Slashdot are going after the Yelp model. Looks like MATLAB hasn't been keeping up with their payments. Would hate for something to happen to all those great slashdot stories about you guys lately.

  2. 64 bit integer plus 64 bit integer equals 65 bits? by LostCluster · · Score: 2, Funny

    In order for a number to need the 64th bit it must have a one in that 64th-most-significant position... and in order to add two such numbers, you end up needing a one in a 65 position... and there's your overflow error.

  3. Circular Logic by Obsolete+Disks · · Score: 3, Funny

    What do we do when the value of 1 starts to float away?
    QT/Octave:

    >>> sqrt(-1)^((4)^1)
    ans = 1
    >>> sqrt(-1)^((4)^15)
    ans = 1
    >>> sqrt(-1)^((4)^16)
    ans = 1.0000e+00 - 2.6298e-07i
    >>> sqrt(-1)^((4)^17)
    ans = 1.0000e+00 - 1.0519e-06i
    >>> sqrt(-1)^((4)^21)
    ans = 1.0000e+00 - 2.6929e-04i
    >>> sqrt(-1)^((4)^22)
    ans = 0.9999994 - 0.0010772i
    >>> sqrt(-1)^((4)^32)
    ans = 0.56253 + 0.82678i
    >>> sqrt(-1)^((4)^40)
    ans = -0.97448 + 0.22446i

    The fractal community will be outraged.

  4. Re:It's not that big of deal by smallfries · · Score: 2, Funny

    If you're a physicist using MATLAB, then you are ... (b) more likely to be using Mathematica than MATLAB in the first place.

    O RLY?

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    Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
  5. Re:So... by fatp · · Score: 2, Funny

    Octave has serious compatibility problem with MATLAB when dealing with 64-bit integers?

  6. Re:MATLAB ~= fast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    My scientific language of choice is MS Excel. What's a double?