what is a multiple precision integer?

Question

"A is a multiple precision n-bit integer represented in radix r" What does this statement mean? In particular, what does A being a multiple precision n-bit integer mean? Please help. Thank you

Answer 1

Let me answer my own question

if the processor is an X bit processor, any integer number that can be represented with in X bits ( ie, 0 to ((2^X)-1) for unsigned int's) it is a single precision numbers. If the integer needs to be represented using more than X bits, it is a multiple precision number. Usually any number is represented using bits that are a multiple of X, since an X bit processor has registers X bits wide, and if a number requires , for eg, 1 bit more than X, it still needs two X bit registers to be stored (hence such a number would be double precision)

Another example, a floating point number in C requires 4 bytes space. So something like

float x;

is a single precision floating point number

double x; requires twice the space of float, hence it is a double precision floating point number

(And if you believe this is wrong please leave your suggestions in the comments)