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look through a very large numbers (1.2e+34) in Python

Already looked at Google and past questions in here and couldn't find a simple and well-explained answer.

How to loop through a large number in python?

e.g. I would like to check how long it will take to loop between 1 and 1.2e+34 and print the final result.

Not sure how to write for look/while loop for this and I have no idea how to write 1.2e+34 in python language (For i = 1 to i = ?).

Solution

  • Python understands 1.2e34, as a float, but you can cast it to an int. int(1.2e34).

    If you want to loop between 1 and n inclusive, you would normally use range(1, n+1).

    Thus, in Python 3:

    for i in range(1, int(1.2e34)+1):
    print(i)   # or do whatever you want

    --

    As FHTMitchell pointed out, in Python 2, the value is too large for range or xrange. You could use a while loop instead.

    i = 1
while i <= 1.2e34:
    print i    # or do whatever you want
    i += 1