“OverflowError: Python int too large to convert to C long” on windows but not mac

I am running the exact same code on both windows and mac, with python 3.5 64 bit.

On windows, it looks like this:

>>> import numpy as np
>>> preds = np.zeros((1, 3), dtype=int)
>>> p = [6802256107, 5017549029, 3745804973]
>>> preds[0] = p
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#13>", line 1, in <module>
    preds[0] = p
OverflowError: Python int too large to convert to C long

However, this code works fine on my mac. Could anyone help explain why or give a solution for the code on windows? Thanks so much!

Answer

You’ll get that error once your numbers are greater than sys.maxsize:

>>> p = [sys.maxsize]
>>> preds[0] = p
>>> p = [sys.maxsize+1]
>>> preds[0] = p
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
OverflowError: Python int too large to convert to C long

You can confirm this by checking:

>>> import sys
>>> sys.maxsize
2147483647

To take numbers with larger precision, don’t pass an int type which uses a bounded C integer behind the scenes. Use the default float:

>>> preds = np.zeros((1, 3))