Original bug ID: 6515
Reporter: @yallop
Status: closed (set by @damiendoligez on 2014-08-18T13:09:19Z)
Resolution: fixed
Priority: normal
Severity: minor
Fixed in version: 4.02.0+dev
Category: documentation
Monitored by: @gasche

Bug description

The documentation says that nativeint has the same width as a long:

This module provides operations on the type nativeint of signed 32-bit integers (on 32-bit platforms) or signed 64-bit integers (on 64-bit platforms). This integer type has exactly the same width as that of a long integer type in the C compiler.
http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/Nativeint.html

but from my reading of the source it's actually given the same width as a pointer:

#elif SIZEOF_PTR == SIZEOF_INT
/* Hypothetical IP32L64 model */
typedef int intnat;

https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/blob/fcc2da384/byterun/config.h#L69-L72

I have a need in ctypes for an OCaml integer type that has the same width as a pointer, and it'd be useful if nativeint were guaranteed to be a suitable choice.