[Python-Dev] ssize_t: ints in header files (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Tue Jun 6 20:04:56 CEST 2006

Jim Jewett wrote:

Martin v. Löwis replied:

... column numbers shouldn't exceed 16-bits, and line #s shouldn't exceed 31 bits. Why these particular numbers? As nearly as I can tell, 8 bits is already too many columns for human readability.

There isn't a practical 8-bit integer type in C, so the smallest integer you can get is "short", i.e. 15 resp. 16 bits. For line numbers, 65536 seems a little too restrictive, so 31 bits is the next-larger type.

If python is being used as an intermediate language (code is automatically generated, and not read by humans), then I don't see any justification for any particular limits, except as an implementation detail driven by convenience.

Precisely so. The main point is that we should set a limit, and then code according to that limit. There is no point to use a 64-bit integer for code size constraints.

Regards, Martin

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