Converting from Decimal to Binary

I discussed the algorithm one would use to convert decimal to binary. I decided that it would probably be easiest to start of with a simple method simlar to this:

$decnum = <STDIN>; # get input from the user

while($decnum<0) { # squeeze all the ones in possible



  for ($x = 1; $x <= $decnum; $x = $x * 2) {

  # find the largest number that where { log(x)/log(2) = W (W is a whole number) }

    $maxnum = $x;

  }

  $decnum -= $maxnum; # subtract the binary-based num. we have so we can loop

  push (@onevals, $maxnum); # store the binary-based num. for later use



}

$currentnum = shift(@onevals); # get the largest binary-based num. we put in storage

$binarynum = "1"; # add a 1 in front (this is our starting point)



for($x = 1; $x < $currentnum; $x = $x * 2) { # add the appropriate number of zeros

  $binarynum .= "0";

}



while(@onevals) { # add all the ones in the right spots

  $currentnum = shift(@onevals); # find the next largest binary-based number

  $binarynum ~= /0(0{log($currentnum - 1)})$/; # find where the next one should go

  $binarynum = $` . 1 . $1; # add the one in there

}

print "$decnum in binary is: $binarynum"; # print the result

Please realize that this code was just written off the top of my head and I haven't even tried it yet. Perl is almost never bug-free for me the first time. Its the basic idea though.