package optint

Optint - Abstract integer types between x64 and x86 architectures

This library provides two new integer types, Optint.t and Int63.t, which guarantee efficient representation on x64 architectures and provide a best-effort boxed representation on x86 architectures.

Goal

The standard Int32.t and Int64.t types provided by the standard library have the same heap-allocated representation on all architectures. This consistent representation has costs in both memory and run-time performance.

On 64-bit architectures, it's often more efficient to use the native Int.t directly, and fallback to the boxed representations on 32-bit architectures. This library provides types to do exactly this:

• Optint.t: an integer containing at least 32 bits. On 64-bit machines, this is an immediate integer; on 32-bit machines, it is a boxed 32-bit value. The overflow behaviour is platform-dependent.

• Int63.t: an integer containing exactly 63 bits. On 64-bit machines, this is an immediate integer; on 32-bit machines, it is a boxed 64-bit integer that is wrapped to provide 63-bit two's complement semantics. The two implementations are observationally equivalent, modulo use of Marshal and Obj.

In summary:

These new types are safe and well-tested, but their architecture-dependent implementation makes them unsuitable for use with the Marshal module. Use the provided encode and decode functions instead.