How to avoid overflow in expr. A * B - C * D

Question

I need to compute an expression which looks like: A*B - C*D, where their types are: signed long long int A, B, C, D; Each number can be really big (not

Answer 1

Choose K = a big number (eg. K = A - sqrt(A))

A*B - C*D = (A-K)*(B-K) - (C-K)*(D-K) + K*(A-C+B-D); // Avoid overflow.

---

Why?

(A-K)*(B-K) = A*B - K*(A+B) + K^2
(C-K)*(D-K) = C*D - K*(C+D) + K^2

=>
(A-K)*(B-K) - (C-K)*(D-K) = A*B - K*(A+B) + K^2 - {C*D - K*(C+D) + K^2}
(A-K)*(B-K) - (C-K)*(D-K) = A*B - C*D - K*(A+B) + K*(C+D) + K^2 - K^2
(A-K)*(B-K) - (C-K)*(D-K) = A*B - C*D - K*(A+B-C-D)

=>
A*B - C*D = (A-K)*(B-K) - (C-K)*(D-K) + K*(A+B-C-D)

=>
A*B - C*D = (A-K)*(B-K) - (C-K)*(D-K) + K*(A-C+B-D)

Note that Because A, B, C and D are big numbers, thus A-C and B-D are small numbers.