A lot of people don't know this, but `BigInt`s are supported in modern JavaScript; integers of arbitrarily large precision.
Try in your browser console:
2n ** 4096n
// output (might have to scroll right)
1044388881413152506691752710716624382579964249047383780384233483283953907971557456848826811934997558340890106714439262837987573438185793607263236087851365277945956976543709998340361590134383718314428070011855946226376318839397712745672334684344586617496807908705803704071284048740118609114467977783598029006686938976881787785946905630190260940599579453432823469303026696443059025015972399867714215541693835559885291486318237914434496734087811872639496475100189041349008417061675093668333850551032972088269550769983616369411933015213796825837188091833656751221318492846368125550225998300412344784862595674492194617023806505913245610825731835380087608622102834270197698202313169017678006675195485079921636419370285375124784014907159135459982790513399611551794271106831134090584272884279791554849782954323534517065223269061394905987693002122963395687782878948440616007412945674919823050571642377154816321380631045902916136926708342856440730447899971901781465763473223850267253059899795996090799469201774624817718449867455659250178329070473119433165550807568221846571746373296884912819520317457002440926616910874148385078411929804522981857338977648103126085903001302413467189726673216491511131602920781738033436090243804708340403154190336n
To use, just add `n` after the number as literal notation, or can cast any Number x with BigInt(x). BigInts may only do operations with other BigInts, so make sure to cast any Numbers where applicable.
I know this is about C, I thought I'd just mention it, since many people seem to be unaware of this.
Not yet, but I believe babel and others just transpile/polyfill it by having it fall back on a string arithmetic library for working with integers of arbitrary precision.
That will never be totally reliable as 1) javascript is dynamically typed 2) javascript doesn't support operator overloading. Nonetheless, there are attempts.
> Update: Now it can convert a code using BigInt into a code using JSBI (https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/jsbi). It will try to detect when an operator is used for bigints, not numbers. This will not work in many cases, so please use JSBI directly only if you know, that the code works only with bigints.
So clearly, if llvm is used as a backend for js, this feature will come in handy.
On a side note, apparently, it will also be useful for the rust folks, which has user implemented libraries to emulate C-like bitfields, and implement bigints,
Try in your browser console:
To use, just add `n` after the number as literal notation, or can cast any Number x with BigInt(x). BigInts may only do operations with other BigInts, so make sure to cast any Numbers where applicable.I know this is about C, I thought I'd just mention it, since many people seem to be unaware of this.