[Tutor] stupid question allowed ;-) ?

[Arne Mueller]

Hi All,

I now stupid question are allowed in this group - so I don't hesitate to
ask ...

I'm using the cPickle module to store a large set of objects in binary
format into a file. All that happens on an SGI R10000 machine (64 bit).
I transfered the pickled object to my 32 bit linux box unpickled it and
got the values I expected ;-) . Sometimes live is easy ... .

However, does that mean the numbers in python (e.g. integers) are not
different on these machines, there's the same maximum integer for 64 and
32 bit platforms?

How does the binary storing and loading work, is the 64 bit integer
truncated to 32 bit? Is it python specific or an os specific behaviour?
In a C program all that could be different, can it? 

Hm, maybe you've some ideas about all that. For me it's realy fine, so I
can do all the nasty calculations on the big SGI and the nice bit at
home on a tiny little laptop (thanks to all pickles!).

	greetings,

	Arne