R devel - Jun 2017 - R history: Why 'L; in suffix character ‘L’ for integer constants?

Wikipedia claims that C ints are still only guaranteed to be at least 16 bits,
and longs are at least 32 bits. So no, R's integers are long.

-pd
> On 16 Jun 2017, at 20:20 , William Dunlap via R-devel <r-devel at
r-project.org> wrote:
> 
> But R "integers" are C "ints", as opposed to S
"integers", which are C
> "long ints".  (I suppose R never had to run on ancient hardware
with 16 bit
> ints.)
> 
> Bill Dunlap
> TIBCO Software
> wdunlap tibco.com
> 
> On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 10:47 AM, Yihui Xie <xie at yihui.name>
wrote:
> 
>> Yeah, that was what I heard from our instructor when I was a graduate
>> student: L stands for Long (integer).
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Yihui
>> --
>> https://yihui.name
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Serguei Sokol <sokol at
insa-toulouse.fr>
>> wrote:
>>> Le 16/06/2017 ? 17:54, Henrik Bengtsson a ?crit :
>>>> 
>>>> I'm just curious (no complaints), what was the reason for
choosing the
>>>> letter 'L' as a suffix for integer constants?  Does it
stand for
>>>> something (literal?), is it because it visually stands out,
..., or no
>>>> specific reason at all?
>>> 
>>> My guess is that it is inherited form C "long integer"
type (contrary to
>>> "short integer" or simply "integer")
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_data_types
>> 
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Office: A 4.23
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com

"Writing R Extensions" says "int":

R storage mode  C type  FORTRAN type
logical  int*  INTEGER
integer  int*  INTEGER
double  double*  DOUBLE PRECISION
complex  Rcomplex*  DOUBLE COMPLEX
character  char**  CHARACTER*255
raw  unsigned char*  none

Bill Dunlap
TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com

On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 11:53 AM, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Wikipedia claims that C ints are still only guaranteed to be at least 16
bits, and longs are at least 32 bits. So no, R's integers are
long.
>
> -pd
>
> > On 16 Jun 2017, at 20:20 , William Dunlap via R-devel <
r-devel at r-project.org> wrote:
> >
> > But R "integers" are C "ints", as opposed to S
"integers", which are C
> > "long ints".  (I suppose R never had to run on ancient
hardware with 16
bit
> > ints.)
> >
> > Bill Dunlap
> > TIBCO Software
> > wdunlap tibco.com
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 10:47 AM, Yihui Xie <xie at yihui.name>
wrote:
> >
> >> Yeah, that was what I heard from our instructor when I was a
graduate
> >> student: L stands for Long (integer).
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Yihui
> >> --
> >> https://yihui.name
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Serguei Sokol <sokol at
insa-toulouse.fr
>
> >> wrote:
> >>> Le 16/06/2017 ? 17:54, Henrik Bengtsson a ?crit :
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm just curious (no complaints), what was the reason
for choosing
the
> >>>> letter 'L' as a suffix for integer constants? 
Does it stand for
> >>>> something (literal?), is it because it visually stands
out, ..., or
no
> >>>> specific reason at all?
> >>>
> >>> My guess is that it is inherited form C "long
integer" type (contrary
to
> >>> "short integer" or simply "integer")
> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_data_types
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
> >       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
> --
> Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> Phone: (+45)38153501
> Office: A 4.23
> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

The relevant sections of the C standard are
http://c0x.coding-guidelines.com/5.2.4.2.1.html, which specifies that C
ints are only guaranteed to be 16 bits, C long ints at least 32 bits in
size, as Peter mentioned. Also http://c0x.coding-guidelines.com/6.4.4.1.html
specifies l or L as the suffix for a long int constants.

However R does define integers as `int` in it's source code, so use of L is
not strictly correct if a compiler uses 16 bit int types. I guess this
ambiguity is why the `int32_t` typedef exists.

On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 3:01 PM, William Dunlap via R-devel <
r-devel at r-project.org> wrote:
> "Writing R Extensions" says "int":
>
> R storage mode  C type  FORTRAN type
> logical  int*  INTEGER
> integer  int*  INTEGER
> double  double*  DOUBLE PRECISION
> complex  Rcomplex*  DOUBLE COMPLEX
> character  char**  CHARACTER*255
> raw  unsigned char*  none
>
> Bill Dunlap
> TIBCO Software
> wdunlap tibco.com
>
> On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 11:53 AM, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at
gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Wikipedia claims that C ints are still only guaranteed to be at least
16
> bits, and longs are at least 32 bits. So no, R's integers are long.
> >
> > -pd
> >
> > > On 16 Jun 2017, at 20:20 , William Dunlap via R-devel <
> r-devel at r-project.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > But R "integers" are C "ints", as opposed to
S "integers", which are C
> > > "long ints".  (I suppose R never had to run on ancient
hardware with 16
> bit
> > > ints.)
> > >
> > > Bill Dunlap
> > > TIBCO Software
> > > wdunlap tibco.com
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 10:47 AM, Yihui Xie <xie at
yihui.name> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Yeah, that was what I heard from our instructor when I was a
graduate
> > >> student: L stands for Long (integer).
> > >>
> > >> Regards,
> > >> Yihui
> > >> --
> > >> https://yihui.name
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Serguei Sokol <
> sokol at insa-toulouse.fr
> >
> > >> wrote:
> > >>> Le 16/06/2017 ? 17:54, Henrik Bengtsson a ?crit :
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I'm just curious (no complaints), what was the
reason for choosing
> the
> > >>>> letter 'L' as a suffix for integer constants?
Does it stand for
> > >>>> something (literal?), is it because it visually
stands out, ..., or
> no
> > >>>> specific reason at all?
> > >>>
> > >>> My guess is that it is inherited form C "long
integer" type (contrary
> to
> > >>> "short integer" or simply "integer")
> > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_data_types
> > >>
> > >> ______________________________________________
> > >> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> > >
> > >       [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> > >
> > > ______________________________________________
> > > R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
> > --
> > Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
> > Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> > Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> > Phone: (+45)38153501
> > Office: A 4.23
> > Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]