Patch #2488: Add sys.maxsize.
diff --git a/Doc/library/sys.rst b/Doc/library/sys.rst
index 4f6416f..390f73d 100644
--- a/Doc/library/sys.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/sys.rst
@@ -521,6 +521,11 @@
is at least 2\*\*31-1. The largest negative integer is ``-maxint-1`` --- the
asymmetry results from the use of 2's complement binary arithmetic.
+.. data:: maxsize
+
+ The largest positive integer supported by the platform's Py_ssize_t type,
+ and thus the maximum size lists, strings, dicts, and many other containers
+ can have.
.. data:: maxunicode
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index befe78d..e2398ce 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@
Core and Builtins
-----------------
+- Patch #2488: Add sys.maxsize.
+
- Issue #2353: file.xreadlines() now emits a Py3k warning.
- Issue #2863: generators now have a ``gen.__name__`` attribute that
diff --git a/Python/sysmodule.c b/Python/sysmodule.c
index c884250..f706a7d 100644
--- a/Python/sysmodule.c
+++ b/Python/sysmodule.c
@@ -992,6 +992,7 @@
Static objects:\n\
\n\
maxint -- the largest supported integer (the smallest is -maxint-1)\n\
+maxsize -- the largest supported length of containers.\n\
maxunicode -- the largest supported character\n\
builtin_module_names -- tuple of module names built into this interpreter\n\
version -- the version of this interpreter as a string\n\
@@ -1345,6 +1346,8 @@
PyString_FromString(Py_GetPrefix()));
SET_SYS_FROM_STRING("exec_prefix",
PyString_FromString(Py_GetExecPrefix()));
+ SET_SYS_FROM_STRING("maxsize",
+ PyInt_FromSsize_t(PY_SSIZE_T_MAX));
SET_SYS_FROM_STRING("maxint",
PyInt_FromLong(PyInt_GetMax()));
SET_SYS_FROM_STRING("py3kwarning",