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Document number: N3542

Date: 2013-03-18

Proposal for Unbounded-Precision Integer Types

by Pete Becker

Excerpt:

This paper proposes two unbounded-precision integer types. The type integer represents signed integer values. The type bits represents an unbounded set of bit values.

To support interoperability, objects of either type can be constructed from values of any of the standard integer types. So code like this just works:

    integer i = 30000;
    integer j = 1000 * i;

    bits b = 0xFF;
    bits c = b & 0xAA;

Converting a negative number to an object of type bits sets the number to the complement of this initializer, so this code just works:

    bits b = -3; // sets b to ...11111100