From: Gary Wright <gwtmp01@...>
Date: 2010-01-19T12:41:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Return class as Integer


On Jan 18, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Rob Biedenharn wrote:
> 
> 
> No, but they're close enough. There's a few bits used to identify some immediate values in the MRI implementation. On a 64-bit platform, a Fixnum will be used up to (1 << 62 - 1). The difference tends to matter only when you're trying to do true 32-bit (or 64-bit) things like cryptographic algorithms where bit shifts or bit rotations are defined on an exact word size.

Yep. Thanks for expanding on my post. I just didn't feel like all those details were going to be helpful in the context of the original question. 

Gary Wright