[Python-Dev] Changing ob_size to [s]size_t

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Martin v. L=F6wis wrote:
> Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> writes:
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>>What about my other objections?
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> Besides "breaks binary compatibility", the only other objection was:
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>>Also could cause lots of compilation warnings when user code stores
>>the result into an int.
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> True; this would be a migration issue. To be safe, we probably would
> define Py_size_t (or Py_ssize_t). People on 32-bit platforms would not
> notice the problems; people on 64-bit platforms would soon provide
> patches to use Py_ssize_t in the core.
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> That is a lot of work, so it requires careful planning, but I believe
> this needs to be done sooner or later. Given MAL's and your response,
> I already accepted that it would likely be done rather later than
> sooner.
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> I don't agree with MAL's objection

Not that I would be surprised ;-)... but which one ?

>>Wouldn't it be easier to solve this particular problem in
>>the type used for mmapping files ?
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> Sure, it would be faster and easier, but that is the dark side of the
> force. People will find that they cannot have string objects with more
> than 2Gib one day, too, and, perhaps somewhat later, that they cannot
> have more than 2 milliard objects in a list.
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> It is unlikely that the problem will go away, so at some point, all
> the problems will become pressing. It is perfectly reasonable to defer
> the binary breakage to that later point, except that probably more
> users will be affected in the future than would be affected now
> (because of the current rareness of 64-bit Python installations).

Why not leave this for Py3K when 64-bit platforms will have
become common enough to make this a real need (I doubt that
anyone is using 1GB Python strings nowadays without getting
MemoryErrors :-).

Until then, I'd rather like to see the file IO APIs and related
types fixed so that they can handle 2GB files all the way
through.

--=20
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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