What is the sum of the digits of the number 2^1000?

This is a problem from Project Euler, and this question includes some source code, so consider this your spoiler alert, in case you are interested in solving it yourself. It is discouraged to distribute solutions to the problems, and that isn't what I want. I just need a little nudge and guidance in the right direction, in good faith.

The problem reads as follows:

2^15 = 32768 and the sum of its digits is 3 + 2 + 7 + 6 + 8 = 26.

What is the sum of the digits of the number 2^1000?

I understand the premise and math of the problem, but I've only started practicing C# a week ago, so my programming is shaky at best.

I know that int, long and double are hopelessly inadequate for holding the 300+ (base 10) digits of 2^1000 precisely, so some strategy is needed. My strategy was to set a calculation which gets the digits one by one, and hope that the compiler could figure out how to calculate each digit without some error like overflow:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace euler016
{
    class DigitSum
    {
        // sum all the (base 10) digits of 2^powerOfTwo
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            int powerOfTwo = 1000;
            int sum = 0;

            // iterate through each (base 10) digit of 2^powerOfTwo, from right to left
            for (int digit = 0; Math.Pow(10, digit) < Math.Pow(2, powerOfTwo); digit++)
            {
                // add next rightmost digit to sum
                sum += (int)((Math.Pow(2, powerOfTwo) / Math.Pow(10, digit) % 10));
            }
            // write output to console, and save solution to clipboard
            Console.Write("Power of two: {0} Sum of digits: {1}\n", powerOfTwo, sum);
            Clipboard.SetText(sum.ToString());
            Console.WriteLine("Answer copied to clipboard. Press any key to exit.");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

It seems to work perfectly for powerOfTwo < 34. My calculator ran out of significant digits above that, so I couldn't test higher powers. But tracing the program, it looks like no overflow is occurring: the number of digits calculated gradually increases as powerOfTwo = 1000 increases, and the sum of digits also (on average) increases with increasing powerOfTwo.

For the actual calculation I am supposed to perform, I get the output:

Power of two: 1000 Sum of digits: 1189

But 1189 isn't the right answer. What is wrong with my program? I am open to any and all constructive criticisms.

Solution

Normal int can't help you with such a large number. Not even long. They are never designed to handle numbers such huge. int can store around 10 digits (exact max: 2,147,483,647) and long for around 19 digits (exact max: 9,223,372,036,854,775,807). However, A quick calculation from built-in Windows calculator tells me 2^1000 is a number of more than 300 digits.

(side note: the exact value can be obtained from int.MAX_VALUE and long.MAX_VALUE respectively)

As you want precise sum of digits, even float or double types won't work because they only store significant digits for few to some tens of digits. (7 digit for float, 15-16 digits for double). Read here for more information about floating point representation, double precision

However, C# provides a built-in arithmetic BigInteger for arbitrary precision, which should suit your (testing) needs. i.e. can do arithmetic in any number of digits (Theoretically of course. In practice it is limited by memory of your physical machine really, and takes time too depending on your CPU power)

Back to your code, I think the problem is here

Math.Pow(2, powerOfTwo)

This overflows the calculation. Well, not really, but it is the double precision is not precisely representing the actual value of the result, as I said.