From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Using the GNU GMP Library for Bignums in Emacs Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 18:40:38 -0400 Message-ID: References: <29f933ac-a6bf-8742-66a7-0a9d6d3e5a88@disroot.org> <83bmecy6fx.fsf@gnu.org> <0d3175d8-d996-651e-b221-71978bde3a65@cs.ucla.edu> <42cbc5ab-2f02-4aa5-4b19-7b2357f91692@cs.ucla.edu> <1f58acbf-a7d8-bf4e-3d0e-a285515a22e6@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1524695933 19526 195.159.176.226 (25 Apr 2018 22:38:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 22:38:53 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eller.helmut@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Apr 26 00:38:49 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1fBT3o-0004zw-R1 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 26 Apr 2018 00:38:48 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:39382 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fBT5v-0008Qs-Ml for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2018 18:40:59 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:33884) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fBT5g-0008Ow-84 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2018 18:40:45 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fBT5f-0007oq-44 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2018 18:40:44 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:41273) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fBT5a-0007mf-L0; Wed, 25 Apr 2018 18:40:38 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1fBT5a-00035U-7R; Wed, 25 Apr 2018 18:40:38 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Paul Eggert on Tue, 24 Apr 2018 18:19:29 -0700) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:224891 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > In C, if the type is unsigned then the corresponding value is > nonnegative. That is, in C there is no such thing as a negative value > with an unsigned type. I know that (of course). It looks like we are miscommunicating. > I certainly wouldn't want the behavior you suggest. Among other things, > Emacs Lisp does not have unsigned types, and I'd rather not introduce > such a concept into the language I think you have misunderstood what I suggest. I am talking about changing the behavior of %x, nothing else. I responded to a statement about what happens in C. Did you misread that as a proposal to change Emacs? > > In Emacs, 0xffffffff will be a bignum. > Whether 0xffffffff is a bignum will depend on the platform. On my 64-bit > Emacs, 0xffffffff already is supported as a fixnum, and that wouldn't > change if bignums were introduced to Emacs. You're right about 64-bit systems. I often forget they exist, since I never use them. My argument is valid nonetheless, because that quantity is a bignum on _some_ systems. If we were to support _only_ 64-but systems, this argument would cease to be valid. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See https://stallman.org/skype.html.