[TCLCORE] Re: 64 bit numbers on IA32

[Eric M. <er...@aj...>]

I don't think it's necessary or advisable to make Tcl support 64-bit
integers on a 32-bit platform.  It seems like the amount of effort and the
degree to which backwards compatibility would be affected does not justify
the benefits.  If you need 64-bit integers, you should move (or are
probably already running on) a 64-bit platform.  Our focus for extending
64-bit support in Tcl should be on making sure that Tcl works properly on
64-bit platforms.  This means that code that uses integers as pointers,
for example, has to be corrected to use real pointers (since pointers on a
64-bit platform are 64-bit, while integers are likely 32-bit).  Similarly,
code that uses integers for file offsets should use size_t instead, for
the same reasons.  This is really what the intention of the "improve
64-bit support" line-item on the 8.4 roadmap was referring to, I believe.

   Eric Melski                            The Other Tcl Guy
   ericm at ajubasolutions.com            Ajuba Solutions




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