[Rd] request for use cases for larger integers in R

[Gabriel Becker]

Hi Luke,

The one I know of is to allow lossless, direct interface to databases that
either a) store some data as 64 bit integers, or b) index using 64 bit
integers due to number of records without needing a glue layer that does a
bunch of casting (for some value of 'a bunch').

I believe both of the above cases would also assumedly hold for flat
formats that store things as 64bit ints, or need such for offsetting into
them due to size, as brought up by Kylie Bemis in the RSMF meeting.

~G

On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 3:27 PM Josiah Parry <josiah.parry using gmail.com> wrote:

> Immediately, spatial indices come to mind. H3, S2, A5 are all represented
> as 64 bit integers.
>
> While an unsigned 64 bit integer, this semi-recent conversation shows a few
> different strategies in {a5r} that were tried
> https://github.com/belian-earth/a5R/pull/12
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 11:25 Ravi Varadhan via R-devel <
> r-devel using r-project.org> wrote:
>
> > Luke,
> >
> > This is an old post from 2015 on R-Bloggers that provided some examples:
> >
> > https://www.r-bloggers.com/2015/06/r-in-a-64-bit-world/
> >
> > Ravi
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: R-devel <r-devel-bounces using r-project.org> on behalf of
> > luke-tierney--- via R-devel <r-devel using r-project.org>
> > Sent: Friday, July 24, 2026 14:04
> > To: R-devel using r-project.org <R-devel using r-project.org>
> > Subject: [Rd] request for use cases for larger integers in R
> >
> >
> >       External Email - Use Caution
> >
> >
> >
> > R integers are current limited to a magnitude ot 2^31 - 1. Integer
> > values up to a magnitude of 2^53 can be represented exatcly as
> > doubles. At times it would be useful to be able to handle larger
> > values.
> >
> > Several options for adding support for large integers to R are under
> > consideration, each with advantages and disadvantages. To help with
> > deciding how to move forward it would be helpful to have a collection
> > of use cases where something is either difficult or impossible to
> > achieve with the current R integer representations. Examples would be
> > most helpful if they are concrete enough to allow us to build test
> > cases.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > luke
> >
> > --
> > Luke Tierney
> > Professor Emeritus
> > Department of Statistics and
> >     Actuarial Science
> > University of Iowa
> > 241 Schaeffer Hall                  email:   luke-tierney using uiowa.edu
> > Iowa City, IA 52242                 WWW:  http://stat.uiowa.edu/<
> > http://stat.uiowa.edu/>
> >
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