is there any ways to limit ruby numbers up to certain bytes? all i’ve
read is that ruby numbers are limited to host’s free memory
What exactly are you trying to do? From the Fixnum documentation:
"A Fixnum holds Integer values that can be represented in a native
machine word (minus 1 bit). If any operation on a Fixnum exceeds this
range, the value is automatically converted to a Bignum.
Fixnum objects have immediate value. This means that when they are
assigned or passed as parameters, the actual object is passed, rather
than a reference to that object. Assignment does not alias Fixnum
objects. There is effectively only one Fixnum object instance for any
given integer value, so, for example, you cannot add a singleton
method to a Fixnum."
Is that the answer you are looking for?
On Jun 10, 2006, at 4:16 AM, Guest wrote:
is there any ways to limit ruby numbers up to certain bytes? all i’ve
read is that ruby numbers are limited to host’s free memory
Keep watching the Ruby Q… 
James Edward G. II
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Guest wrote:
is there any ways to limit ruby numbers up to certain bytes? all i’ve
read is that ruby numbers are limited to host’s free memory
Use a bit mask to truncate the integer:
irb(main):011:0> ((2 ** 32) - 1)
=> 4294967295
irb(main):012:0> ((2 ** 32) - 1) & 0xFF
=> 255
irb(main):013:0> ((2 ** 32) - 1) & 0xFFFF
=> 65535
irb(main):014:0> ((2 ** 32) - 1) & 0xFFFFFF
=> 16777215
irb(main):015:0> ((2 ** 32) - 1) & 0xFFFFFFFF
=> 4294967295
For negative integers, be sure to preserve the sign by converting
the result back into two’s complement form:
irb(main):021:0> -1
=> -1
irb(main):022:0> -1 & 0xFF
=> 255
irb(main):023:0> ~(-1 & 0xFF) + 1
=> -255
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