I tried two methods. The first was to pad X and Y with 0s so they both become of even and equal length, for example:
X = 123 , Y = 45678
becomes:
X = 000123 , Y = 045678
a = 0 , b = 123 , c = 45 , d = 678
but the problem with this implementation is when inputting:
X = 100 and Y = 14
becomes:
X = 0100 , Y = 0014
a = 1 , b = 0 , c = 0 , d = 14
ac = 0
bd = 0
ad + bc = 14
then: 10^4*(0) + 10^2*(14) + 0
notice how 10^2(14) is exactly the problem we started with, this will cause infinite recursion
the second solution I tried was to pad 0s to the right side instead, and then divide the final answer by 10^(# of 0s added) but that also causes infinite recursion in some scenarios.
What should I do?