Re: "cannot coerce inexact literal to fixnum"

On 2024-02-10 15:38, Peter Bex wrote:

> That's because you're using fixnum mode.  As I explained, using literals
> that might be too large for fixnums break the fixnum mode's premise that
> everything must be a fixnum.

Oh. So it refuses to emit C code that might break on 32-bit at runtime 
(silent truncation of atoi result, presumably), preferring instead to 
definitely break during Scheme compilation on any platform. OK, I get 
the rationale.


> That's because string->number gets constant-folded and evaluated at
> compile-time.


Obviously; and I suppose there's no simple way to prevent that for just 
one line, not the entire unit?

> It would help if you tried to explain exactly _what_ you're trying to do
> here, instead of _how_ you're trying to do it.  Why do you need these
> constants?

I did mention twice that I'm using them to implement int->u32. There are 
also places where I need to increment-and-wrap int32's by INT32_MIN. I'm 
writing a Forth compiler incidentally (which may or may not have been a 
good idea). I store values in s32vector's, but they get turned into 
Scheme numbers by s32vector-ref. I guess I'd prefer native s32int/u32int 
types, complete with wrap-around and meaningful conversion to Scheme 
ints, but I don't think that exists.

> It does that (more or less), as I explained. And it *wouldn't* work,


Yeah, I understand why now. I suppose the best way is to use foreign 
values. Maybe I should switch the arithmetic code to C too. Thanks.


-- Al