[erlang-questions] Decoding integers serialised by Erlang

[Mikael Pettersson]

Rabbe Fogelholm writes:
 > The ei library has functions for decoding Erlang terms in binary format. One of
 > these functions is ei_get_type(const char *buf, const int *index, int *type, int *size).
 > The returned value for "type" may be ERL_SMALL_INTEGER_EXT, which indicates that
 > the data is an 8-bit item.
 > 
 > My question: Do the 8 bits represent an integer 0..255? Or -128..127?

A quick grep in the otp sources reveal that it's the former, i.e. [0,255].

 > And, is the
 > representation always the same, or does it depend on the platform that the encoding
 > took place on?

There should be no platform dependencies in the encoding, and I don't see any,
apart from the common 'char is 8 bits'.