Asmus Freytag scripsit: > PS: private answer to Jill: make sure that your characters are always > represented internally by infinite precision integers.
Actually, the intractability of the transfinite ordinals shows us that there can be no such thing. Ordinary "infinite precision" integers begin with a fixed-size length word saying how many words (for whatever definition of "word") follow. But eventually the fixed-size length word will overflow, and must be replaced by a variable-sized length word, itself prefixed by a length^2 word. But eventually the length^2 word will overflow, and must be replaced .... But eventually the number of length words will become too large, and the length-length word will overflow, requiring ... But then ... You can't win. -- The man that wanders far [EMAIL PROTECTED] from the walking tree http://www.reutershealth.com --first line of a non-existent poem by: John Cowan
