> From: "Geoff McInnes" <gmcinnes@...>
> Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 19:05:28 -0500
>
> May I politely enquire as to where exactly things
> are wrt 64 bit integers [hopefully from Mssrs Schnepper,
> Karwin etc?]
>
> On a scale of 1 to 10 with
>
> 1 = An army of coders will take 6 months to complete
>
> 10 = Its there just flick a switch?
>
> Thank you

64-bit integers are integral (<g>) to IB 6.0. You don't even have to
flick a switch: just use SQL dialect 3 (6.0 native mode).

In a dialect-3 database, any column declared as NUMERIC(n,m) or
DECIMAL(n,m) where n >= 10 is implemented as a 64-bit integer, and all
arithmetic involving only INTEGER, SMALLINT, DECIMAL, or NUMERIC data
is done using scaled 64-bit integers. If you want literally an
integer of that size, just declare your domain or column as
DECIMAL(18) or DECIMAL(18,0).

In an ODS 10 (version 6.0 native) database, generators are also 64
bits, and wrap around after 2**64 invocations, not 2**32 as in
previous releases. For compatibility, an application using SQL
dialect 1 will actually see the least significant 32 bits out of the
64 bits stored in a generator, while a dialect-3 application will get
the full 64. Even when a 32-bit app uses gen_id(), the full 64 bit
value is incremented: a dialect-3 app that comes along and uses the
same generator a moment later will get the next value in correct
64-bit-integer arithmetic, not a 32-bit wraparound.

--
Chris Jewell developer/sysadmin voice: 831-431-6531
cjewell@... InterBase Software fax: 831-431-6510