Imaginary base numbers

Imaginary base numbers is a draft programming task. It is not yet considered ready to be promoted as a complete task, for reasons that should be found in its talk page.

Imaginary base numbers are a non-standard positional numeral system which uses an imaginary number as its radix. The most common is quater-imaginary with radix 2i. The quater-imaginary numeral system was first proposed by Donald Knuth in 1955 as a submission for a high school science talent search. [Ref.]

Other imaginary bases are possible too but are not as widely discussed and aren't named.

Task: Write a set of procedures (functions, subroutines, however they are referred to in your language) to convert base 10 numbers to imaginary and back. At a minimum, support quater-imaginary (base 2i).

See Wikipedia: Quater-imaginary_base for more details.

For reference, here are some some decimal and complex numbers converted to quater-imaginary.

Base 10	Base 2i
1	1
2	2
3	3
4	10300
5	10301
6	10302
7	10303
8	10200
9	10201
10	10202
11	10203
12	10100
13	10101
14	10102
15	10103
16	10000

Base 10	Base 2i
−1	103
−2	102
−3	101
−4	100
−5	203
−6	202
−7	201
−8	200
−9	303
−10	302
−11	301
−12	300
−13	1030003
−14	1030002
−15	1030001
−16	1030000

Base 10	Base 2i
1i	10.2
2i	10.0
3i	20.2
4i	20.0
5i	30.2
6i	30.0
7i	103000.2
8i	103000.0
9i	103010.2
10i	103010.0
11i	103020.2
12i	103020.0
13i	103030.2
14i	103030.0
15i	102000.2
16i	102000.0

Base 10	Base 2i
−1i	0.2
−2i	1030.0
−3i	1030.2
−4i	1020.0
−5i	1020.2
−6i	1010.0
−7i	1010.2
−8i	1000.0
−9i	1000.2
−10i	2030.0
−11i	2030.2
−12i	2020.0
−13i	2020.2
−14i	2010.0
−15i	2010.2
−16i	2000.0

Perl 6

Works with: Rakudo version 2017.01

These are generalized imaginary-base conversion routines. They only work for imaginary bases, not complex. (Any real portion of the radix must be zero.) Theoretically they could be made to work for any imaginary base; in practice, they are limited to integer bases from -6i to -2i and 2i to 6i since those bases will fit within standard base 36 digit representations. Bases -1i and 1i exist but require special handling and are not supported. Bases larger than 6i (or -6i) require digits outside of base 36 to express them, so aren't as standardized, are implementation dependent and are not supported here. Note that imaginary numbers are stored as floating point numbers in Perl 6 so some rounding error may creep in during calculations. The precision these conversion routines use is configurable; we are using 8 decimal places of precision here.

<lang perl6>multi sub base ( Real $num, Int $radix where -37 < * < -1, :$precision = -15 ) {

   return '0' unless $num;
   my $value  = $num;
   my $result = ;
   my $place  = 0;
   my $upper-bound = 1 / (-$radix + 1);
   my $lower-bound = $radix * $upper-bound;

   $value = $num / $radix ** ++$place until $lower-bound <= $value < $upper-bound;

   while ($value or $place > 0) and $place > $precision {
       my $digit = ($radix * $value - $lower-bound).Int;
       $value    =  $radix * $value - $digit;
       $result ~= '.' unless $place or $result.contains: '.';
       $result ~= $digit == -$radix ?? ($digit-1).base(-$radix)~'0' !! $digit.base(-$radix);
       $place--
   }
   $result

}

multi sub base (Numeric $num, Complex $radix where *.re == 0, :$precision = -8 ) {

   die "Base $radix out of range" unless -6 <= $radix.im <= -2 or 2 <= $radix.im <= 6;
   my ($re, $im) = $num.Complex.reals;
   $re .= &base( -$radix.im².Int, :precision($precision) );
   $im = ($im/$radix.im).&base( -$radix.im².Int, :precision($precision) );
   my ($re-wh, $re-fr) = $re.split: '.';
   my ($im-wh, $im-fr) = $im.split: '.';
   $_ //=  for $re-wh, $re-fr, $im-wh, $im-fr;

   sub zip (Str $a, Str $b) {
       my @n = do given $a.chars cmp $b.chars {
           when Less { flat (flat $a.comb, 0 xx *) Z flat $b.comb }
           when More { flat $a.comb Z flat (flat $b.comb, 0 xx *) }
           default   { flat $a.comb Z flat $b.comb }
       }
       @n.pop while +@n and @n.tail eq 0;
       [~] @n || 0
   }

   my $whole = flip zip $re-wh.flip, $im-wh.flip;
   my $fraction = zip $im-fr, $re-fr;
   $fraction eq 0 ?? "$whole" !! "$whole.$fraction"

}

multi sub parse-base (Str $str, Complex $radix where *.re == 0) {

   return -1 * $str.substr(1).&parse-base($radix) if $str.substr(0,1) eq '-';
   my ($whole, $frac) = $str.split: '.';
   my $fraction = 0;
   $fraction = [+] $frac.comb.kv.map: { $^v.parse-base($radix.im².Int) * $radix ** -($^k+1) } if $frac;
   $fraction + [+] $whole.flip.comb.kv.map: { $^v.parse-base($radix.im².Int) * $radix ** $^k }

}

1. TESTING

for 0, 2i, 1, 2i, 5, 2i, -13, 2i, 9i, 2i, -3i, 2i, 7.75-7.5i, 2i, .25, 2i, # base 2i tests

   5+5i,  2i, 5+5i,  3i, 5+5i,  4i, 5+5i,  5i, 5+5i,  6i, # same value, positive imaginary bases
   5+5i, -2i, 5+5i, -3i, 5+5i, -4i, 5+5i, -5i, 5+5i, -6i, # same value, negative imaginary bases
   227.65625+10.859375i, 4i # larger test value
 -> $v, $r {

my $ibase = $v.&base($r); printf "%20s.&base\(%2si\) = %-10s : %12s.&parse-base\(%2si\) = %s\n",

 $v, $r.im, $ibase, "'$ibase'", $r.im, $ibase.&parse-base($r).round(1e-8).narrow;

}</lang>

Output:

                   0.&base( 2i) = 0          :          '0'.&parse-base( 2i) = 0
                   1.&base( 2i) = 1          :          '1'.&parse-base( 2i) = 1
                   5.&base( 2i) = 10301      :      '10301'.&parse-base( 2i) = 5
                 -13.&base( 2i) = 1030003    :    '1030003'.&parse-base( 2i) = -13
                0+9i.&base( 2i) = 103010.2   :   '103010.2'.&parse-base( 2i) = 0+9i
               -0-3i.&base( 2i) = 1030.2     :     '1030.2'.&parse-base( 2i) = 0-3i
           7.75-7.5i.&base( 2i) = 11210.31   :   '11210.31'.&parse-base( 2i) = 7.75-7.5i
                0.25.&base( 2i) = 1.03       :       '1.03'.&parse-base( 2i) = 0.25
                5+5i.&base( 2i) = 10331.2    :    '10331.2'.&parse-base( 2i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base( 3i) = 25.3       :       '25.3'.&parse-base( 3i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base( 4i) = 25.C       :       '25.C'.&parse-base( 4i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base( 5i) = 15         :         '15'.&parse-base( 5i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base( 6i) = 15.6       :       '15.6'.&parse-base( 6i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base(-2i) = 11321.2    :    '11321.2'.&parse-base(-2i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base(-3i) = 1085.6     :     '1085.6'.&parse-base(-3i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base(-4i) = 10F5.4     :     '10F5.4'.&parse-base(-4i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base(-5i) = 10O5       :       '10O5'.&parse-base(-5i) = 5+5i
                5+5i.&base(-6i) = 5.U        :        '5.U'.&parse-base(-6i) = 5+5i
227.65625+10.859375i.&base( 4i) = 10234.5678 : '10234.5678'.&parse-base( 4i) = 227.65625+10.859375i