From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,4751d44ff54a2c2c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-07-30 17:13:17 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: 64-bit integers in Ada Date: 30 Jul 2002 17:13:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <5ee5b646.0207301613.5b59616c@posting.google.com> References: <3CE3978F.6070704@gmx.spam.egg.sausage.and.spam.net> <3D46DC69.7C291297@adaworks.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.232.38.14 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1028074397 7582 127.0.0.1 (31 Jul 2002 00:13:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Jul 2002 00:13:17 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:27503 Date: 2002-07-31T00:13:17+00:00 List-Id: Richard Riehle wrote in message news:<3D46DC69.7C291297@adaworks.com>... > Robert, > > We still have quite a few embedded platforms for which 64 bit > integers are not supported. There is no reason for hardware support here, even the ia32 does not have hardware support, but 64-bit integers are very useful and must be supported, just as floating-point MUST be supported even on processors with no floating-point. > We would like to be able to use > Ada 95 for them, so a requirement for a language feature that > is not supported would be meaningless. gcc supports 64-bit integers on virtually all processors including 8-bit microprocessors. > Also, there has been > some discussion, in the past, about support for eight-bit > microcontrollers such as the I-8051 family. I am sure > some compiler developer would find it very entertaining > to design an Ada compiler with 8051 64 bit integers, Not so much entertaining, but rather quite straightforward. > but also quite useless. Not at all! If your application requires 64-bit integers, e.g. long durations measured in nanoseconds, then you have to have this facility, and it is far better that it be provided by the compiler, rather than having to cook up some half baked software multiple precision support which is likely to be FAR less efficient, and certainly far less convenient. Once again, in a language which requires all implementations to provide floating-point, it seems a trivial additional effort to provide 64-bit integer support. Note that if anyone bothers to port GNAT to an 8-bit microprocessor currently supported by GCC, then the 64-bit integer support will come for free. > Richard Riehle