Bengt Richter wrote:
If you are looking at them in C code receiving them as args in a call, "treat them the same" would have to mean provide code to coerce long->int or reject it with an exception, IWT.
The typical way of processing incoming ints in C is through PyArg_ParseTuple, which already has the code to coerce long->int (which in turn may raise an exception for a range violation).
So for typical C code, 0x80000004 is a perfect bit mask in Python 2.4.
It's not a matter of "buggy" if you are trying to optimize. (I am aware of premature optimization issues, and IMO "strange" is in the eye of the beholder. What syntax would you suggest?
The question is: what is the problem you are trying to solve? If it is "bit masks", then consider the problem solved already.
Same goes for code that says it takes a 32-bit bitfield argument but won't accept 0x80000000.
If the bitfield is signed, it can't, unless you are glossing over an assumed coercion rule.
Just have a look at the 'k' specifier in PyArg_ParseTuple.
Regards, Martin