long integer python_Python OverflowError: cannot fit 'long' into an index=sized integer

The following code demonstrates the problem that you are running into: import sys x = [True]*(sys.maxint+1)

which yields an OverflowError. If you instead do: x = [True]*(sys.maxint)

then you should get a MemoryError.

Here is what is going on. Python can handle arbitrarily large integers with its own extendible data type. However, when you try to make a list like above, Python tries to convert the number of times the small list is repeated, which is a Python integer, to a C integer of type Py_ssize_t. Py_ssize_t is defined differently depending on your build but can be a ssize_t, long, or int. Essentially, Python checks if the Python integer can fit in the C integer type before doing the conversion and raises the OverflowError if it won't work.