When writing challenges involving integer I/O, I always find myself having to type the same thing: You may assume that the input and output will not exceed the maximum representable range in your language. I think it would be useful if we had a default for integer ranges in challenges, to avoid needing the same text in every challenge (and if chat stars are anything to go by, I'm not alone in this).
Should we have a default integer range? If so, what should it be?
... as long as the author does not purposely minimize the valid input range by performing otherwise unnecessary calculations to bump against a limit.
If we only put limits on I/O, the following trivial challenge will be almost impossible:
Write a function or program that returns its argument plus one.
I think this is a good idea.
For one, it saves challenge authors a lot of work. Not only that, but it potentially lowers the barrier to entry for newer challenge authors would wouldn't have thought to consider that.
We have a standard loophole that would help to guard against abuse of this default.
I would propose that the default upper and lower bounds be the bounds on what's representable in a single signed numeric value (integer or float) in the given language.
#include <stdint.h>, as well as use 7 or 8 character type name. Plain old int is much nicer to golf in, especially as its the default type for globals.
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Commented
Feb 19, 2016 at 1:19
You may assume that the inputs and outputs will be no greater than the maximum representable integer in your language or 2^64 - 1, whichever is less (from OP's recent challenge) but using a more reasonable default (2^32-1?) could be a solution to this.
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Commented
Feb 19, 2016 at 4:40
int, not int64_t or anything fancy.
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(What you stated)
Keep this loophole in mind.
"Number" is defined as the most "basic" (or default) numeric "type" the language uses (e.g. JavaScript's floats, C's int)
If the default numeric type has no limit then there is no limit to the I/O integers until the system runs out of memory. (e.g. Python's numbers).
Also, as @Nbz stated in his answer. Unnecessary or purposeful code to minimize the range of valid inputs should be prohibited
int but that only goes up to 2^32 or 2^64, and C also has double which is insanely huge.
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int8, and I'm very certain it's not a chore to find a language with support for 4 bit numbers. 4 or 8 bits seems pretty "basic"; far more "basic" than int. int is indeed ubiquitous, but that's not very objective :(
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The note negative for the 99% answers, that down quality of them: The absence of a range in the code for a valid argument for function that return a right result.
There would be a range limit for the arg of the function; something as 1..20000 and each answer would indicate its kind of range the argument has to be for to be safe to pass to the function (without one seg fault in the code, without one memory insufficient for the program, without one incorrect value return as result ).
So it is not the question that specify the general range of validity for the answers (perhaps a minimum range) but it is the answer specific it, based of restrictions: language, mean PC power computation, algorithm etc.