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#### 8.2.3.1 The CPU's Natural Integer Types

For most purposes, you will always use ``Integer'`, a signed integer type which has the "natural" size of such types for the machine. On most machines GPC runs on, this is a size of 32 bits, so ``Integer'` usually has a range of ``-2147483648..2147483647'` (see section 9.125 Integer).

If you need an unsigned integer type, the "natural" choice is ``Cardinal'`, also called ``Word'`. Like ``Integer'`, it has 32 bits on most machines and thus a range of ``0..4294967295'` (see section 9.37 Cardinal, section 9.303 Word).

These natural integer types should be your first choice for best performance. For instance on an IA32 CPU operations with ``Integer'` usually work faster than operations with shorter integer types like ``ShortInt'` or ``ByteInt'` (see below).

This document was generated by Frank Heckenbach on May, 10 2002 using texi2html