Integer sizes save the day

I was looking to convert some string data into integers – the data was bytes & I needed it in GB.  The value I needed was buried in the middle of a string so I needed to do some string processing. Some other conditions forced me to use the Parse method of the integer class

Lets say I get a number like 2147483169 back in the data & I need to divide by 1gb

£> [int]::Parse(“2147483169”) / 1gb
1.99999955389649

I’ve put the string value directly in here rather than the complicated string processing I was actually using.

The point came when I realised that I could have much bigger numbers than 2Gb so what was the maximum I could work with

£> [int]::maxValue
2147483647
£> [int]::maxValue / 1gb
1.99999999906868

OK thats not enough.  The standard [int] is 32bits & I know its big brother has 64 bits so how…