# Gavin Andresen
# 2011-01-29 21:30:37
# https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3034.msg42503#msg42503

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From the jansson docs: @p{par}

"integer numbers whose absolute values are too large to be represented in the int type will result in an overflow error" @p{par}

As I said in the thread about possibly changing the ECDSA curve bitcoin uses, programmers like to solve "problems" that they know they can solve and that they think will make things a little bit better.  But, in my humble opinion, unless you're solving an important problem changing things because you think you know how is often a bad idea. @p{par}

This is a perfect example:  change the RPC to spit out 64-bit integers (or move to a new RPC that spits out integers) and anybody using jansson on a 32-bit-int platform will get an overflow error. @p{par}

I kind of like tcatm's suggestion to define new RPC methods that specify a base unit using strings... but then I thought more about it: @p{par}

We could use scientific notation, so 1 BTC would be 1e08 base units; then if we ever needed more precision the JSON interface wouldn't change, you could just specify 1e-03 as a value.... @p{brk}
... but that's exactly what we have now.  1 BTC is 1e00, 1 base unit is 1e-08, and if we ever needed more precision the JSON interface is ready. @p{brk}