On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Kyle Miller
Or, three other options: 1) make MIN_INT outside the domain of abs, 2) make the range of abs be some unsigned int type, or 3) use Integer (i.e., use a type which actually represents integers rather than a type which can only handle small integers).
I think I would just document that Int is intended to represent a machine word and therefore inherits the behavior of machine words, behavior at its extrema is subject to the CPU behavior as a result, and if consistent behavior is required then Integer should be used. (Indeed, it should probably note that Int is a performance hack; but then you run into all the Data.List etc. functions that use it.) -- brandon s allbery kf8nh sine nomine associates allbery.b@gmail.com ballbery@sinenomine.net unix, openafs, kerberos, infrastructure, xmonad http://sinenomine.net