I don't think a 32 bit perl has a direct equivalent of 64 bit integers. That probably means you can do 3 things:

1. Use a 32 bit int (i.e. T_IV or T_UV) which has the advantage that any numbers in the 32 bit range can be accurately be represented, but higher numbers cannot be represented at all.

2. Use a floating point number (i.e. T_NV, which is an 8-bitbyte double on my system) which is able to represent the whole range, but not 100% accurately.

3. Create your own type conversion from/to a perl object (i.e. an XS pointer to a long long, in which case you need to provide some mechanism for read/write access, or maybe you can convert from/to Math::BigInt). Probably the most hassle, but you can guarantee precision and range.

Update: I just thought of another way: you can convert from/to a string representation of the number. Should be easy to do, but the perl side of things has to be careful not to accidentally convert it back to a number (float or int). That means you won't be able to do normal arithmatics with it (you'll have to use Math::BigInt or something similar).

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

In reply to Re: Supporting long long types in XS by Joost
in thread Supporting long long types in XS by chrisdolan

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