I note that I can write expressions like "1 << 100" and the result is stored as a long integer, which means it is stored as an integer of arbitrary length. I may need to use a large number of these, and am interested to know whether the storage efficiency of long integers is in danger of breaking my code if I use too many. Would I do better to write a class that defines bitwise operations on arrays of integers, each integer being assumed to contain at most 32 bits? I cannot find information in the Python manuals for 2.4.1 that would allow me to resolve this question; perhaps the intention is that programmers should not rely on implementation details.
Thanks in advance, Jeff -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
