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: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 23:07:04 -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> <2549728d-8e40-b46a-009e-07cef0c24208@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 1525057511 5800 195.159.176.226 (30 Apr 2018 03:05:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2018 03:05:11 +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 Mon Apr 30 05:05:06 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 1fCz7h-0001O4-NT for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 30 Apr 2018 05:05:05 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57618 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fCz9o-0007M2-Gb for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 29 Apr 2018 23:07:16 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:52735) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fCz9h-0007Lk-Fo for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 29 Apr 2018 23:07:10 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fCz9g-00078U-86 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 29 Apr 2018 23:07:09 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:54383) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fCz9c-00076z-OX; Sun, 29 Apr 2018 23:07:04 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1fCz9c-0008VZ-CK; Sun, 29 Apr 2018 23:07:04 -0400 In-reply-to: <2549728d-8e40-b46a-009e-07cef0c24208@cs.ucla.edu> (message from Paul Eggert on Wed, 25 Apr 2018 16:29:56 -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:224973 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. ]]] > > If we were to support_only_ 64-bit systems, this argument would cease > > to be valid. > That is easy to arrange; just configure --with-wide-int. This causes > Emacs to use 64-bit words on all platforms That may be correct, but it doesn't respond to the point at hand. The point at hand is that Emacs does support 32-bit Lisp objecs in some cases. and that a 32-bit number _in 32-bit builds_ will not be a fixnum. If you're suggesting that I personally change to a 64-bit build, that doesn't respond to the issue at hand. It's not about what happens for me in particular. If you're suggesting to eliminate support for 32-bit builds, I agree that that would eliminate the issue. But I think that change would have substantial disadvantages. > However, I don't see why assuming 64 bits would mean that the argument > would cease to be valid. Even with that assumption, we would continue > have the same problem with numbers like #xffffffffffffffff that exceed > Emacs fixnum range when words are 64 bits. I expect that %x is used only for values meant to interact with the operating system in certain ways, and that _most of_ those values will never be more than 32 bits. I could be mistaken in this, but it is a factual question. Where else do people use %x? -- 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.