Why integer and int32

[Michael Culley]

Why do we have both integer and int32 in VB? They seem to do exactly the
same thing and are completely interchangable.

--
Michael Culley
www.vbdotcom.com

[Paul Mc]

G'day Michael.

>Why do we have both integer and int32 in VB? They seem to do exactly the
>same thing and are completely interchangable.

They *are* exactly the same thing.

I can see no *good anough* reason for keeping both, personally. Perhaps it
is just that Integer has been in BASIC for so long that it is mainly due
to inertia... If Integer was unchanged from VB6, then I would see the value.
However since Integer is in fact now what Long was, breaking compatability
with VB6, it really just serves as a source of occassional, mild, confusion.
After all this time in .Net, still I muck up with Integer and Long sometimes.
No big deal, just a small annoyance.

Cheers,
Paul

[Michael Culley]

Yes, as dan appleman said, the biggest bug he sees with api calls is people
defining integers as longs. Every time I have accidentally used a long, the
IDE has warned me.

--
Michael Culley
www.vbdotcom.com



"Paul Mc" <paulmc@nospam.thehub.com.au> wrote in message
news:3cb4da3f$1@10.1.10.29...
>
> G'day Michael.
>
> >Why do we have both integer and int32 in VB? They seem to do exactly the
> >same thing and are completely interchangable.
>
> They *are* exactly the same thing.
>
> I can see no *good anough* reason for keeping both, personally. Perhaps it
> is just that Integer has been in BASIC for so long that it is mainly due
> to inertia... If Integer was unchanged from VB6, then I would see the
value.
> However since Integer is in fact now what Long was, breaking compatability
> with VB6, it really just serves as a source of occassional, mild,
confusion.
> After all this time in .Net, still I muck up with Integer and Long
sometimes.
> No big deal, just a small annoyance.
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
>

[Kathleen Dollard]

Michael,

Um, Integers are friendly and Int32 is right?

Course, Integers are also evil

Kathleen

[Ed Courtenay]

"Michael Culley" <mike@vbdotcom.com> wrote in message
news:3cb4d855@10.1.10.29...
> Why do we have both integer and int32 in VB? They seem to do exactly the
> same thing and are completely interchangable.
>
> --
> Michael Culley
> www.vbdotcom.com
>

Int32 is the underlying type in the .NET framework, whereas Integer is the
'friendly' VB.NET name for it, in exactly the same way that 'int' is the
friendly name in C#.

[vinay]

"Michael Culley" <mike@vbdotcom.com> wrote:
>Why do we have both integer and int32 in VB? They seem to do exactly the
>same thing and are completely interchangable.
>
>--
>Michael Culley
>www.vbdotcom.com
>
>

Integer is a keyword in VB language while int32 is .NET framework datatype.
And in VB.NET, VB Integer is traslated into int32. So in VB.ABCD (if it is
there), Integer may get translated to int64 or float32 or something else.

[Willy Van den Driessche]

I would say, int32 will always be 32 bit while integer may become int64 or
int128 in the long run.
--
Van den Driessche Willy
For a work in progress :
http://users.skynet.be/wvdd2/index.html

[Karl E. Peterson]

Now that that precedent is set, yep. No datatype is safe, anymore.
--
[Microsoft Basic: 1976-2001, RIP]


"Willy Van den Driessche" <wvddwebcomments@skynet.be> wrote in message
news:3cb67aa0@10.1.10.29...
> I would say, int32 will always be 32 bit while integer may become int64 or
> int128 in the long run.
> --
> Van den Driessche Willy
> For a work in progress :
> http://users.skynet.be/wvdd2/index.html
>
>

[dnb]

"Integer" has traditionally meant the native word size of a h/w platform (8,
16, 32, or now 64 bits) in my experience.



"Michael Culley" <mike@vbdotcom.com> wrote in message
news:3cb4d855@10.1.10.29...
> Why do we have both integer and int32 in VB? They seem to do exactly the
> same thing and are completely interchangable.
>
> --
> Michael Culley
> www.vbdotcom.com
>
>
>
>
>

[Phil Weber]

> "Integer" has traditionally meant the native word size
> of a hardware platform (8, 16, 32, or now 64 bits) in my
> experience.

dnb: In C-based languages, "int" has been the size of the platform's native
word. In MS BASIC dialects on IBM PCs and compatibles, "Integer" has always
been a 16-bit signed integer, regardless of the underlying hardware or OS.
---
Phil Weber

[dnb]

I've never used the "C-base languages' as a measurement of "normal".

Having my roots extend back to PDP-11 Macro-11 and even 8080's and 6502's
before that, the concept of integer operations was a signed or unsigned
value the width of the hardware's ALU.

It was not until C came along that the confusion ran rampant: "WORD", 'int",
"ptr' and dozens of other designations came along that all meant (most of
the time) the same number of bits of storage, turning programming into a
kind of Trivial Pursuit (qv: the off-ramp discussion on case-sensitivity on
compilers).

don


"Phil Weber" <pweber@nospam.fawcette.com> wrote in message
news:3cb87df6$1@10.1.10.29...
> > "Integer" has traditionally meant the native word size
> > of a hardware platform (8, 16, 32, or now 64 bits) in my
> > experience.
>
> dnb: In C-based languages, "int" has been the size of the platform's
native
> word. In MS BASIC dialects on IBM PCs and compatibles, "Integer" has
always
> been a 16-bit signed integer, regardless of the underlying hardware or OS.
> ---
> Phil Weber
>
>

[Dan Barclay]

On Sat, 13 Apr 2002 12:47:20 -0500, "dnb" <dnb@offramp.net> wrote:

>"Integer" has traditionally meant the native word size of a h/w platform (8,
>16, 32, or now 64 bits) in my experience.

Sorry, but your experience is showing. The following integer sizes
were used in MS Basic on various platforms.

Platform Native size Integer size
CP/M 8 16
TRSDOS 8 16
DOS 16 16
Win16 16 16
Win32 32 16

Is there a pattern here?

The size of Integer has always been 16 bits, and it has been
documented that way.

You may be confused by how other languages handle data types. C/C++,
for example, define only the *minimum* size. For example "int" is
defined to be *at least* 16 bits. It is not required to be "native"
size but from what I can tell it generally is.

Clue: Basic isn't another language, it's Basic. Well, I guess it's
another language now... dunno what it is.

Dan
Language Stability is a *feature* I wish VB had!
(#6)
Error 51
Error 3
Error 9
....

[Kunle Odutola]

"Dan Barclay" <Dan@MVPs.org> wrote in message
news:iprlbus69bs1k0g9s4jh5cqh92be0c3e14@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 13 Apr 2002 12:47:20 -0500, "dnb" <dnb@offramp.net> wrote:
>
> >"Integer" has traditionally meant the native word size of a h/w platform
(8,
> >16, 32, or now 64 bits) in my experience.
>
> Sorry, but your experience is showing. The following integer sizes
> were used in MS Basic on various platforms.
>
> Platform Native size Integer size
> CP/M 8 16
> TRSDOS 8 16
> DOS 16 16
> Win16 16 16
> Win32 32 16
>
> Is there a pattern here?
>
> The size of Integer has always been 16 bits, and it has been
> documented that way.

Sorry Dan but your experience may be showing too. "Integer" _used_ to be 16
bits. It is now 32 bits.
HTH.

[And it is documented too ;-)]


Kunle

[Jason]

The answer is: because VB defines it that way.

In VB6, an integer is 16 bits.

This does not make much sense on modern machines, so VB7 dropped the 16 bit
Integer and went to the 32 bit Integer. This is defined by the language,
not the machine.

Why is that important? When 64 bit machines arrive, an Integer in VB7 will
be 32 bits across all machines, from WinCE machines, to PCs, to Itaniums.
You will be able to run the same code on all three machines without having
to worry about the difference in what the machine considers to be an "Integer."

An Integer in VB will henceforth be 32 bits, until the next major overhaul
of the language.


"dnb" <dnb@offramp.net> wrote:
>"Integer" has traditionally meant the native word size of a h/w platform
(8,
>16, 32, or now 64 bits) in my experience.

[dnb]

I don't have my IBM 1620 programming card anymore, but I think that one
might have been 12 bits. I know it was something weird (by today's
standards, anyway :-)

OR was that the PDP-8, sigh...