Longs

Longs is the plural of the data type long, used in many programming languages to denote a larger integer type that extends the range of values beyond a typical int. The term appears in languages such as C, C++, Java, and C#, and is often contrasted with shorter integer types like short or int. In practice, longs are variables that store whole numbers for counters, indices, file positions, and arithmetic results that exceed the capacity of smaller types.

In C and C++, long is a signed integer type with a width that is implementation-dependent. On Windows 64-bit, long is 32 bits; on many Unix-like systems it is 64 bits (the LP64 model). The C standard also provides long long, which is at least 64 bits. Typical ranges include −2147483648 to 2147483647 for a 32-bit long, and −9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807 for a 64-bit long.

In Java, long is a 64-bit signed integer with range −9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807. In C#, long is an alias for System.Int64. Python 2 distinguishes int and long, while Python 3 uses a single arbitrary-precision int, so there is no separate long type in Python 3.

Use of longs involves considerations of portability and performance. If exact width is required, languages provide fixed-width types such as int32_t and int64_t; otherwise the actual size of long depends on the platform. In most modern environments longs are represented in two's complement, but representations are not guaranteed by language standards. See also: short, int, long long, size_t.