Is there a way to get the largest integer one can use in Python?

Question

Is there some pre-defined constant like INT_MAX?

It is 2^31 - 1 in Python 32 and 2^63 - 1 Python 64 bit runtime system. — Vlad Bezden, Feb 11 '20 at 12:15

Matthew Flaschen · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-03T03:20:06.933

134

Python has arbitrary precision integers so there is no true fixed maximum. You're only limited by available memory.

In Python 2, there are two types, int and long. ints use a C type, while longs are arbitrary precision. You can use sys.maxint to find the maximum int. But ints are automatically promoted to long, so you usually don't need to worry about it:

sys.maxint + 1

works fine and returns a long.

sys.maxint does not even exist in Python 3, since int and long were unified into a single arbitrary precision int type.

edited Jan 03 '11 at 03:20

answered Jan 03 '11 at 03:14

Matthew Flaschen

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Note that in Python 3 (and Python 2.6 and up) `sys.maxsize` can be used when you need an arbitrarily-large value. – mattdm Jan 23 '12 at 19:07
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is there one that is not a long? – Charlie Parker Feb 28 '14 at 02:04
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`sys.maxsize` continues to be the theoretical limit on size of containers for python 2 and 3 (theoretical because memory is the real limiting factor) – Tadhg McDonald-Jensen Mar 11 '17 at 21:14
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@mattdm `sys.maxsize+1` is larger than that. – jarno Apr 01 '19 at 10:42

Is there a way to get the largest integer one can use in Python?

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