A common design decision is how large to make a field. For many numbers, we think that a byte will be large enough to hold practical values, but one day we will find out that it is not. This is essentially the Y2k problem, or year 2032 issue.
A simple variable integer coding (tied to byte ranges) toVint =: [: ; (255&| ,~ 255 #~ <.@%&255) each toVint 566 44 255 255 56 44 It now takes 3 bytes to store 566, and one byte to store 44. the challenge is to write fromVint such that 566 44 -: fromVint 255 255 56 44 as an extra challenge, is there a way to write toVint or fromVint such that it is faster than using intermediate boxing? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
