Re: [Caml-list] Primitive sizes

[Brian Hurt <bhurt@spnz.org>]

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004, Jonathan Bryant wrote:

> Ok.  Maybe I need to make clear what I'm doing.  I'm trying to write
> native Java methods and have them call an OCaml library.  The problem is
> that I need Java compatible primitives to pass back from the methods. 
> In Java (ON ALL PLATFORMS), the primitives fall this way (in case you
> don't know them off the top of your head):

I don't know what Java's calling convention is.  My advice:

>  Type     Bits
>  -----    ----
> byte    - 8
> short   - 16
> char    - 16
> boolean - 8

The above I'd just promote to ints for Ocaml, and truncate as necessary.

> int     - 32

I'd use Int32's.

> long    - 64

I'd use Int64's.

> float   - 32
> double  - 64

I'd be inclined to promote both of these to Ocaml floats, which are 64-bit 
IEEE 754 floats (the same as Java's).  The extra precision won't hurt 
anything except stupidly strict binary compatability.

I assume you're using one of the Ocaml->JVM compilers kicking around.  
Tying Ocaml native mode (or VM) code to Java would be way too much work.

-- 
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Brian

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