[M3devel] INTEGER

[hendrik at topoi.pooq.com]

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 11:52:14AM -0700, Mika Nystrom wrote:
> 
> Is the infinite extent of the TEXT type a serious implementation difficulty? :-)

Yes, actually.  It requires heap storage allocation and indirection.  That's just what 
it costs, so we pay it, since fixed-width strings aren't all that useful.

But integer ranges of a size that matches the application (instead of the hardware)
are quite feasible and useful; I'd rather not pay the proce of dynamic heap allocation 
for each integer.

-- hendrik

> 
>     Mika
> 
> hendrik at topoi.pooq.com writes:
> >On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 03:44:03PM -0400, Tony Hosking wrote:
> >> Defined as...
> >
> >A type whose values are integers.  If it's only used as subranges,
> >its infinite extent is not an implementation difficulty.
> >
> >-- hendrik
> >
> >> 
> >> On 22 Apr 2010, at 11:43, hendrik at topoi.pooq.com wrote:
> >> 
> >> > On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 03:27:50PM -0400, Tony Hosking wrote:
> >> >> This is bizarre, and perverts the language definition significantly more than the current scheme.
> >> >> What is the base type of that subrange?
> >> > 
> >> > LONGINT.
> >> > 
> >> > -- hendrik
> >> > 
> >k