[vtk-developers] 64 bit ints

[Michael Halle]

I've been hacking some code that acts as a container for multiple
primitive types, and I'm having some trouble dealing with 64 bit
integer types ("long long" or "__int64").  VTK seems to overload the
64 bit-ness of them with the name vtkIdType, which is a functional
description.  A vtkIdType is only a 64 bit integer if the system
supports it, otherwise it is 32 bits.

Could we separate these two ideas?  Can we have a vtkInt64 type that
is really 64 bits, existing only if it is really on the system, and a
vtkIdType that is whatever maximum is supported by the system?

Does VTK really run on any systems that don't support some sort of 64
bit integer value?

Thanks!

Michael Halle
mhalle at bwh.harvard.edu