Project Euler Forum

some problems require a number thats too big for java to handle, and then i cant find the solution even though my code was most likely correct, which is quite annoying to me

correction: a lot of problems require a number that is too big

Java can handle arbitrarily large integers, with java.math.BigInteger

Many problems that at first sight require very large numbers can be solved using long integers (<2^63) only. Especially when the answer being asked for is modulo some large number that fits into a long integer.

that BigInteger and long integer dont really work that well in my opinion, in my experience they didnt help me further or get me the correct solution

maybe i have to learn a new programming language that allows me to do things with large numbers.

Java's BigInteger is clumsy to use, but if it didn't help you get further with whichever problem prompted the initial post then switching language is probably not the solution. There are PE problems where a naïve approach of calculating everything with BigInteger and applying the modulo M at the very end requires gigabytes of memory for the BigInteger, but that can always be worked around by applying the modulo M to intermediate calculations as well.

no actually, BigInteger does help in some cases (not all), its just something clumsy to use indeed, but i feel like its the only way. but it has helped me some solve problems that normal integer wouldnt.

I use BigInteger, it's a bit clunky compared with normal coding but has always worked. Successful on 5 problems between 50 and 70.

I'm more of a math person so I found this frustrating at first also, but the problems are meant to provoke you to find creative workarounds in your language of choice.