How does python output -4294967296 in 32 bits integer

Question

I'm trying to understand how Python 2.7.6 can output -4294967296 from a 32 bit integer. My assumptions on python integers are:

Python does not have unsigned integers
Python uses 2's complement

If assumption 2 is true than in a 32 bit integer the max negative number should be -2147483648 (-2^31) since the MSB is resolved for the sign of the integer.

Does Python stack on another 32 bits ( 32 bit + 32 bit) to make a 64 bit integer?

Check out [this question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9860588/maximum-value-for-long-integer) which is mostly concerned with Python 2, which had the word-sized `int` and the arbitrary-sized `long` types, but in Python 3, these integer types were unified, and `long` -> `int` and there is no corresponding numeric type for what was a Python 2 fixed-sized int. — juanpa.arrivillaga, Oct 04 '17 at 21:50
@jonrsharpe Thanks, I've editted the post to remove that assumption — tyleax, Oct 04 '17 at 22:15
@user2357112 How do other systems, protocols, communications handle this infinite-bit integer? Isn't messages sent typically in chunks of bytes? — tyleax, Oct 04 '17 at 22:20

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 04 '17 at 22:13

Python does not have a limit for the size on an integer.

In Python 2, integers would automatically be converted to longs when they went past the limit for an INT.

In Python 3, Integers have arbitrarily high precision.There is no defined limit in the language.

How does python output -4294967296 in 32 bits integer

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