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From: Ian Maxon <imaxon@uci.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 16:03:30 -0700
Message-ID: <CAN_YF5yJc9b+c6jDFNznRa9i+DmLsihAFS4O=5Xfq2wOWMy4QA@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Unsigned integers data types
To: dev@asterixdb.apache.org
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archived-at: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 23:03:54 -0000

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My 0.2c is that int64 is big enough if size was the consideration. Usually,
the times that I have wished I had unsigned integers in Java, were not
related to size constraints, but rather when I had to implement something
that required a lot of bitwise operations, since signedness makes that more
complicated. Usually int64 is big enough, and if it isn't, uint64 isn't
much better because you are probably representing something so huge that
arbitrary precision arithmetic is more appropriate.

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 3:47 PM, Ildar Absalyamov <
ildar.absalyamov@gmail.com> wrote:

> Things like Spark and Flink don=E2=80=99t do that as well, but because th=
ey need
> integration with proper Java types.
>
> > On Jun 16, 2016, at 15:45, Yingyi Bu <buyingyi@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>> Is there any database or SQL implementation supporting that?
> > Ok, it turns out MySQL supports that,  while Postgres, MS SQL and Hive =
do
> > not have that.
> >
> > Best,
> > Yingyi
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Yingyi Bu <buyingyi@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>>> I guess part of the reason why we do that is because Java used to la=
ck
> >> native support of unsigned integers.
> >> Is there any database or SQL implementation supporting that?
> >>
> >> FYI:
> >>
> >>
> http://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/53050/why-arent-unsigned-integer-t=
ypes-available-in-the-top-database-platforms
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Yingyi
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 3:27 PM, Ildar Absalyamov <
> >> ildar.absalyamov@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi devs,
> >>>
> >>> As I was generating various data distributions for statistics
> experiments
> >>> one thing kept bothering me.
> >>> All Asterix integer types (int8, int16, int32, int64) are signed.
> However
> >>> majority of real use cases does not require negative integer values.
> Seems
> >>> like we are waisting half of the data range on something which does
> not get
> >>> used that often. I guess part of the reason why we do that is because
> Java
> >>> used to lack native support of unsigned integers. But since Java 8
> there
> >>> are methods which do unsigned comparison and division (summation,
> >>> subtraction, multiplication are the same in both signed and unsigned
> >>> cases). So it seems like conversion to support unsigned integers woul=
d
> not
> >>> be that difficult.
> >>>
> >>> Any thoughts on whether we need unsigned integers in the type system?
> >>>
> >>> Best regards,
> >>> Ildar
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
>
> Best regards,
> Ildar
>
>

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