Ruling out arbitrary cost copy construction?

[bearophile]

> Lot of time ago I have instead suggest BigInt.sizeof == size_t.sizeof, because in most programs you need integers smaller than 63 bit, 31 bits are enough. This increases the performance a little on 32 bit systems.

The compiler also has to make sure the tests for out-of-smallint-range are always inlined, otherwise you are mostly wasting your time optimizing BigInt for small integers.

Bye,
bearophile