Re: Fraction Cancelation

[BillKSmith]

I would not rule out the possibility that straight forward floating point arithmetic is more "efficient" than any cancelation algorithm. Loss of precision could be a problem for large numbers and/or arrays. Alternating the multiplies and divides could help.

[LanX]

Good point.

Sorting and alternating the arrays to keep the temporary product near 1 should help minimizing the error.

[Laurent_R]

It really depends on the purpose of the whole thing. For some uses, floating point arithmetic is probably just good enough, and may very well be the most efficient solution; for example, it would probably be just good enough is the final aim is to compute probabilities.

For some others purposes, you may need accurate integer arithmetic.