[Tutor] Hex to Str - still an open issue

[Liam Clarke]

Ah, thanks all. I wasn't thinking of base 2 numbers like base 10 -
when you describe it like that, I get i. (100 = 10^2 + 0*10^1 +
0*10^0) I was thinking strictly in terms of a base 10 number described
by flags for each power of 2, which (to me) would logically start from
2^0 and go right.

And yeah, I intend to study computer science as I can, so it's
definitely the maths papers first. I'm working through my little
brother's textbook on matrix algebra at the moment. Ick.

Regards,

Liam Clarke


On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 15:10:42 -0000, Alan Gauld <alan.gauld at freenet.co.uk> wrote:
> > While I jest somewhat, that highlights a serious deficiency in my
> > education that becomes more and more apparent, which is in maths.
> 
> Yes, its a sad fact. Good programming beyond basics does require a
> modicum of maths. You can learnn enough to do useful things without
> math, but there reaches a point when math becomes essential. Its
> no coincidence that at university Computing was traditionally
> (up till the late 70's at least) a branch of mathematics.
> 
> > But the remainder thing - would this be why we read binary the way
> we do?
> >
> > 4 is 001 (on a continuum of 2^0 to 2^n), but using the above
> approach
> > we get 100.
> 
> Not really. The reason we read 4 as 100 is the same reason we
> read 400 as 400 instead of 004 - we traditionally put the most
> significant part tothe left since we (in English at least) read
> from left to right.
> 
> 400 = 4x10**2 + 0x10**1 + 0x10**0
> 
> 110 = 1x2**2 + 0x2**1 + 0x2**0
> 
> But if we convert back again we can generate the number 400
> from the value 400 by the same technique we saw for binary:
> 
> 400/10 = 40 rem 0
> 40/10 = 4   rem 0
> 4/10 = 0    rem 4
> 
> So reading remainders bottom up we get 400, which is
> the decimal representation of 400! :-)
> 
> So the algorithm is identical, we can write a generic
> function to convert a value into a representation if we
> pass in the value and base.
> 
> Alan G.
> 
> 


-- 
'There is only one basic human right, and that is to do as you damn well please.
And with it comes the only basic human duty, to take the consequences.