In Python, is there a way to get the largest integer one can use? Is there some pre-defined constant like INT_MAX?
77
votes
1 Answers
130
votes
Python has arbitrary precision integers so there is no true fixed maximum. You're only limited by available memory.
In Python 2, there are two types, int
and long
. int
s use a C type, while long
s are arbitrary precision. You can use sys.maxint
to find the maximum int
. But int
s are automatically promoted to long
, so you usually don't need to worry about it:
sys.maxint + 1
works fine and returns a long
.
sys.maxint
does not even exist in Python 3, since int
and long
were unified into a single arbitrary precision int
type.