[Python-Dev] Type of range object members

[Guido van Rossum]

On 8/15/06, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
> Greg Ewing schrieb:
> > Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> >> We had this discussion before; if you use ob_size==0 to indicate
> >> that it's an int, this space isn't needed in a long int.
> >
> > What about int subclasses?
>
> It's what Guido proposes.
>
> It would still leave two types (perhaps three) at the C level,
> so C code might have to continue making conditional code depending
> on which of these it is. Also, Python code that dispatches by type
> still needs to make the distinction.

I'm not sure that subclassing ints gives us much. We could make int
and long "final" types, and then all we have to do is tweak type() and
__class__ so that they always return the 'int' type.

Alternatively, yes, there would be some minimal awareness of the two
types in Python -- but nothing like we currently have; dispatching on
exact type (which we discourage anyway) would be the only case. Would
that be so bad?

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)