Re: [Chicken-users] set-file-position! only works with fixnums

[John Cowan]

Thomas Bushnell BSG scripsit:

> I think this is a mistake, but "fixing" it is harder than it seems.
> 
> Really, this is totally non-schemey.  
> 
> The criterion should be an exact integer, just as it is for arrays.
> Instead of allowing inexact integers to be file positions, how about
> extending the hierarchy to handle these cases directly?

Well, in order for that to work you have to persuade Felix to incorporate
bignums in the core, and they can't be GMP bignums either because of
the licensing -- that would make Chicken as a whole GPL, and that's not
gonna happen.  Making all that happen is what is harder than it seems.

Indexing arrays with fixnums is no problem, because Chicken won't let
them be bigger than 2^24 elements anyhow, and fixnums go up to 2^32 - 1.
The sizes of files isn't under Chicken's control, but 2^53 is plenty
big enough for a long time to come.

-- 
It was impossible to inveigle           John Cowan <address@hidden>
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Into offering the slightest apology
For his Phenomenology.                      --W. H. Auden, from "People" (1953)