My package, rbedrock, reads and manipulates data from external sources. Some of the data is stored as 64-bit integers, and in order to not depend on the bit64 package, I store them as strings [1]. Of course, native support would be helpful for this data type.
Another feature that I would find useful when dealing with external dataset is to not map -INT_MIN to NA, as a user might need to perform arithmetic on external data that has that value. Having 32-bit and 64-bit wide binary values that support (unsigned) arithmetic might be a way to support efficient editing of external data. It would definitely help me encode certain algorithms at the R level instead of the C level. [1] https://github.com/reedacartwright/rbedrock/blob/main/src/nbt.c#L334 On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 4:38 PM Gabriel Becker <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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 <[email protected]> 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 < > > [email protected]> 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 <[email protected]> on behalf of > > > luke-tierney--- via R-devel <[email protected]> > > > Sent: Friday, July 24, 2026 14:04 > > > To: [email protected] <[email protected]> > > > 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: [email protected] > > > Iowa City, IA 52242 WWW: http://stat.uiowa.edu/< > > > http://stat.uiowa.edu/> > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > [email protected] mailing list > > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel< > > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel> > > > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > [email protected] mailing list > > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > > > > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > > ______________________________________________ > > [email protected] mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
