In JavaScript, how do I ensure floating point numbers stay under 32bits?

Question

Obviously numbers in JavaScript aren't explicitly typed, but are represented as types by the interpreter. I just saw a thing about Google's V8 JS engine that said it's greatly optimized for 32 bit numbers, but found it odd many JS programmers would have a need for doubles even with floating point. The only examples I could think of personally is if I'm dividing two integers, which I do often in order to normalize screen coordinates between 0 and 1, and the interpreter is truncating the result at 64 bits instead of 32. This also seems unlikely to me, but then again I don't know how else someone needing such precision would specify it. So now I'm wondering...is there a way to ensure the quotient of two (not gigantic) integers is under 32 bits in length?

Answer 1

I just saw a thing about Google's V8 JS engine that said it's greatly optimized for 32 bit numbers

This only means that V8 does internally store those numbers as integers when it can deduce that they will stay in the respective range. This is common for counters or array indices, for example.

Is there a way to ensure the quotient of two (not gigantic) integers is under 32 bits in length?

No - all arithmetic operations are carried out as if they were 64 bit floating point numbers (like all numbers in JS). They only thing you can do is to truncate the result back to a 32 bit integer. You'll use the bitwise right shift operator for that which internally casts its operands to integers:

var q = (a / b) >>> 0;

See What is the JavaScript >>> operator and how do you use it? for details.