How to apply long's L when using variable names in Java?

Question

I've tried to build a factorial generator out of words, but every time I enter some big numbers, it makes my numbers negative.

I figured I should use a long with an identifier (L). I've applied it to the initialization of the long, but that didn't fix it. I guess the problem is somewhere around here:

for (int j = 1 ; j <= wordLength; j++) {
    temp *=  j;
}    

how do I assign the L to temp so it reserves enough space for the number to fit in?

Answer 1

The l isn't applied to variable-names. You can of course do that to include the type of a variable in it's name, but that's rather a question of style than anything else, like this:

long avariableL = someLong;

for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
    avariableL *= i;

l is only used for constants in the code, like

long someLong = 123456789L;

Variables don't magically change their type during execution of code. You'll have to declare the variable as long.