Python Short Integers

Question

I have a huge dataset which needs to be fully loaded into memory and Python allocates integers automatically based on the underlying system architecture.

So, can I force Python to use only 2 bytes for some integers (an equivalent of C++ 'short')?

Answer 1

Firstly, if you're doing any sort of manipulation of this huge dataset, you'll probably want to use Numpy, which has support for a wide variety of numeric types, and efficient operations on arrays of them.

And the answer to your question,

from array import array
a = array("h") # h = signed short, H = unsigned short

As long as the value stays in that array, it will be a short integer.

PS: C++'s short not 2 bytes width. It's implementation dependent.