Question

I am working on a Linux counter which should count all installed Linux machines (all linux kernel based, that is including Android and so on) to date (and in the future). Here’s what I’ve got:

#include <stdint.h>

int main(int argc, char ** argv)
{
     uint32_t num_linux_machines = count_current_linux_machines();

     while (1) {
        wait_for_next_linux_machine_installed();
        num_linux_machines++;
     }
}

Don’t worry about the count() and wait() functions, I’ll do that later. The question is: Do you think that uint32_t will be sufficient for the next, say 5 years or should I use uint64_t right away instead? Thanks for any insights 😉

The real question that would be harder to answer is how to implement the two missing functions (that is which heuristics to use).

Answer 1

A 64-bit counter only consumes 4 additional bytes, so why not? It’s not like 4 more bytes will bloat the program.