# [luatex] Will the next version of LuaTeX allow integer up to 2^(63)-1?

Hans Hagen pragma at wxs.nl
Fri Oct 2 17:11:35 CEST 2015

```On 10/2/2015 9:42 AM, Mico Loretan wrote:
> Greetings!
>
> It is well known that TeX’s count registers, \count0 thru \count255, have a range of 2^32 integers (from -2^31 thru 2^31-1).
>
> Lua 5.3, released in January 2015, introduced an explicit integer numeric type. Integers are now stored and processed as 64-bit items. If and when LuaTeX switches from Lua 5.2 to 5.3, will the range of permissible integers in TeX counters be expanded from 2^32 to 2^64, so that they can range from 2^(-63) to 2^63-1? Just curious.

that's very unlikely as internally those ranges are often part of a
larger type (and when one needs that many counters one should probably
reconsider the code and use lua tables for storing numbers instead)

going 64 bit internally in tex would mean a lot of checking and patching
of code

also, we're not sure if we move to 5.3 anyway

Hans

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