The integral octonions have a version of factorization into primes, though it is not straightforward to state because the octonions are not associative so the product of octonions depends on the order in which one does the products. The irreducible integral octonions are exactly those of prime norm, and every integral octonion can be written as a product of irreducible octonions. More precisely an integral octonion of norm can be written as a product of integral octonions of norms and .