Issue 21444: __len__ can't return big numbers

I want to use big numbers for length.

>>> class A:
...     __len__ = lambda self: 10 ** 20
>>> len(A())
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#5>", line 1, in <module>
    len(A())
OverflowError: cannot fit 'int' into an index-sized integer

While this is classed as a CPython implementation detail (see issue 15718) it doesn't sound like it is likely to be changed (see issue 2723).

Whoops; sorry -- accidental title change by typing `__len__` into something that wasn't the search box.

Stupid fingers...

(I suspect this issue is a duplicate of an existing issue.)

Mark: I thought it was too, but the two I noted were the closest I could find.  Maybe you'll find something even more on point :)

If `len()` signature can't be changed to return Python int objects (unlimited) then the OverflowError may contain the actual `.length`
 property instead (based on msg66459 by Antoine Pitrou)

operator.length():

    def length(sized):
        """Return the true (possibly large) length of `sized` object.

        It is equivalent to len(sized) if len doesn't raise 
        OverflowError i.e., if the length is less than sys.maxsize on
        CPython; otherwise return OverflowError.length attribute
        """
        try:
            return len(sized)
        except OverflowError as e:
            return e.length

That's pretty evil. :-)

I recommend this be closed:  too much impact on existing code for too little benefit.  

CPython has historically imposed some artificial implementation specific details in order make the implementation cleaner and faster internally (i.e. a limit on the number of function arguments, sys.maxsize limits, etc.)

messages: + msg218124

type: enhancement