# Re: ruby-nuby bytes question

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-ruby-nuby-bytes-question/64492>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 7, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-ruby-nuby-bytes-question/64492 "2006-02-07T19:38:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-ruby-nuby-bytes-question/64492/1 "2006-02-07T19:38:07Z")

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Dear Steven,

there are no integers in Ruby, only Fixnum and Bignum.  
The conversion is automatical.  
Matz, Ruby’s creator, says that you should use these without  
caring about their internal representation.

You can find some detail on this website:

\_[O'Reilly Media - Technology and Business Training](http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2006/01/the_ruby_value_1.html_)  
([http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2006/01/the\_ruby\_value\_1.html](http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2006/01/the_ruby_value_1.html))

If you want to know how many bytes are used to represent a  
number, you can use

puts 1.size =\> 4 bytes on my machine  
puts 1.class =\> Fixnum  
puts (2**3000).size =\> 376 bytes on my machine.  
puts (2**3000).class =\> Bignum

Best regards,

Axel