https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=98076
--- Comment #5 from Francois-Xavier Coudert <fxcoudert at gcc dot gnu.org> --- Consider this: /* Fast helper function for a positive value that fits in uint64_t. */ char *itoa64 (uint64_t n, char *p) { while (n != 0) { *--p = '0' + (n % 10); n /= 10; } return p; } Then the logic inside gfc_itoa is reworked like this: %%%%%%%%%% *p = '\0'; #if 1 i (t <= UINT64_MAX) { p = toa64(t, p); } else { unsigned __int128 r; #define TEN19 ((unsigned __int128) 1000000 * (unsigned __int128) 1000000 * (unsigned __int128) 10000000) r = t % TEN19; t = t / TEN19; p = itoa64(r, p); assert(t <= UINT64_MAX); p = itoa64(t, p); } #else while (t != 0) { *--p = '0' + (t % 10); t /= 10; } #endif if (negative) *--p = '-'; return p; %%%%%%%%%% where the "#if 1" branch is the new code, and the "#else" branch is the old code. Unless I'm mistaken, two calls to itoa64() are sufficient to guarantee that we can output all values up to INT128_MAX = 2^127 - 1. That's because (2^127 - 1) / 10^19 is smaller than UINT64_MAX = 2^64 - 1. We would need three calls if we wanted to output values up to UINT128_MAX = 2^128 - 1, but we don't: Fortran only deals with signed integers. Benchmark of this code, for formatting of 10 millions numbers into a buffer: - formatting 1042: old code 0.31 seconds, new code 0.06 seconds - formatting INT32_MAX: old code 0.88 seconds, new code 0.07 seconds - formatting INT64_MAX: old code 1.77 seconds, new code 0.16 seconds - formatting INT128_MAX: old code 3.74 seconds, new code 0.49 seconds It remains to be seen how much of the actual Fortran I/O is bound by gfc_itoa(). But the benchmarking is interesting enough that it ought to be tried in a real example inside libgfortran, which is what I will do next.