Re: 28 bit ought to be enough for anyone.
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic(a)srce.hr> writes in xemacs-beta(a)xemacs.org:
I'm surprised that you all seem to miss it, but bignums cannot
be
added as a module, because they require additional support in the Lisp
engine, as well as changes all over XEmacs.
We're not talking about bignum support as it exists in CL. We're only
talking about how large integers can be supported period.[1] If we
are talking about bignum support, then you are correct.
Am I the one who is missing something obvious?
In terms of getting support from a library such as GMP, I don't think
they can be added via Lisp only.
In terms of getting support from a DLL that links against GMP and uses
an opaque LRECORD object, I think it should be possible, though I
don't know whether it is possible.
In pure Emacs lisp, it is possible by using lists with numbers broken
into chunks similar to the way timestamps are now.
Footnotes:
[1] Unless it is me who is missing something obvious.