1000 factorial

Well, someone wrote that they could write a program to do 1000! in one line of Haskell. I said that it would take less than 100 lines of C to do the same. I wrote the program, and it is less than 100 lines of C:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

#define LENGTH 10000

int max (int a, int b) { return (a > b) ? a : b; }
int min (int a, int b) { return (b > a) ? a : b; }

int length (unsigned char * a)
 {
   int i;
   i = LENGTH - 1;
   while ((a[i] == 0) && (i >= 0)) i--;
   return i + 1;
 }

void add (unsigned char * a, unsigned char * b)
 {
   int i, c, C;
   c = min(max(length(a), length(b)) + 1, LENGTH);
   for (i = 0, C = 0; i < c; i++)
    {
      a[i] += b[i] + C;
      C = a[i] > 99;
      if (C) a[i] -= 100;
    }
 }

   unsigned char x [LENGTH], y [LENGTH];
void mul (unsigned char * a, unsigned char * b)
 {
   int i, j, c, d, C;
   memset(y, '\0', LENGTH);
   c = min(length(a) + length(b) + 1, LENGTH);
   d = length(b);
   for (i = 0; i < d; i++)
    {
      memset(x, '\0', LENGTH);
      for (j = 0, C = 0; (i + j) < c; j++)
       {
         x[i + j] = (a[j] * b[i] + C) % 100;
         C = (a[j] * b[i] + C) / 100;
       }
      add(y, x);
    }
   memcpy(a, y, LENGTH);
 }

void numset (unsigned char * a, unsigned long b)
 {
   int i;
   for (i = 0; i < LENGTH; i++)
    {
      a[i] = b % 100;
      b /= 100;
    }
 }

int tz (unsigned char * a)
 {
   int i;
   for (i = 0; i < LENGTH; i++) if (a[i] != 0) return 0;
   return 1;
 }

   unsigned char minus1 [LENGTH], prod [LENGTH];
void fact (unsigned char * a)
 {
   numset(prod, 1);
   while (!tz(a))
    {
      mul(prod, a);
      add(a, minus1);
    }
   memcpy(a, prod, LENGTH);
 }

   unsigned char arg_res [LENGTH];
int main (void)
 {
   unsigned long a;
   int i;
   memset (minus1, 99, LENGTH);
   printf("Input the number to take the factorial of: ");
   scanf("%lu", &a);
   numset(arg_res, a);
   fact(arg_res);
   i = LENGTH - 1;
   while (arg_res[i] == 0) i--;
   while (i >= 0)
    {
      printf("%02d", (int) arg_res[i]);
      i--;
    }
   putchar('\n');
   return 0;
 }

>>144
It does in fact not square any number unless you are referring to the number 1, but that is indeed the only number it will square.

As for how it is done, that is just a silly implementation detail.