Lua number type and 64-bit machines

[John Barham <jbarham@...>]

Hi all, Lua newbie (but long-time C and Python programmer) here, and
apologies if this issue has already been resolved.

Given the following:

 1. Lua's number type is conventionally a typedef for 64-bit double
precision floating-point numbers
 2. 64-bit floats can only represent integers up to 53 bits of precision
 3. 64-bit machines are becoming increasingly popular

is there a case for adding a separate integer numeric type to Lua?  Or
would it be feasible to emulate Python's arbitrary precision "long"
integer type that is automatically created on overflow?

I appreciate that currently having only one numeric type helps keep
Lua simple, but I fear that on 64-bit machines Lua's number type might
not be able to represent common integer values such as process ids or
file offsets.

  John