[Numpy-discussion] size_t or npy_intp?

[Dag Sverre Seljebotn]

Kurt Smith wrote:
>
> Looking at the bufferinfo struct for the buffer protocol, it uses `Py_ssize_t`:
>
> struct bufferinfo {
>      void *buf;
>      Py_ssize_t len;
>      int readonly;
>      const char *format;
>      int ndim;
>      Py_ssize_t *shape;
>      Py_ssize_t *strides;
>      Py_ssize_t *suboffsets;
>      Py_ssize_t itemsize;
>      void *internal;
> } Py_buffer;
>
> So everyone is using signed values where it would make more sense (to
> me at least) to use unsigned.  Any reason for this?
>
> I'm using `npy_intp` since Cython does it that way :-)
>   
And Cython (and NumPy, I expect) does it that way because Python does it 
that way. And that really can't be changed.

The reasons are mostly historical/for convenience. And once 64-bit is 
more widespread, do we really care about the one bit?

 From PEP 353:


    Why not size_t56 <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0353/#id9>

An initial attempt to implement this feature tried to use size_t. It 
quickly turned out that this cannot work: Python uses negative indices 
in many places (to indicate counting from the end). Even in places where 
size_t would be usable, too many reformulations of code where necessary, 
e.g. in loops like:

for(index = length-1; index >= 0; index--)

This loop will never terminate if index is changed from int to size_t.


Dag Sverre