Question

Assuming I have a program with the function

def fakultaet(x):
    if x>1:
        return(x* fakultaet(x-1)) 
    else:
        return(1)

that returns the factorial of a given number, I need to calculate

1.0/fakultaet(200)

but I get an overflow error: long int too large to convert to float.

How can I solve this problem?

Answer 1

You could try this:

from decimal import Decimal

def fakultaet(x):  # as you have it currently
    if x>1:
        return(x * fakultaet(x-1)) 
    else:
        return(1)

print Decimal(1.0) / fakultaet(200)

Output:

1.267976953480962421753016371E-375

---

Oh, and also, there is a factorial function in the math module already, just include from math import factorial at the top of your file to obtain access to it.