unsigned int optimizations?

[Marcus Comstedt (ACROSS) (Hail Ilpalazzo!) @ Pike (-) developers forum]

Integers which can fit in an INT_TYPE are stored as such, not as
bignums.  This applies also to results of computations involving
bignums.  Smaller integer types are not used, as there would be no
point; it would not save any memory because they are put in a svalue
which has a fixed size, and it would generate slower code on most
systems.  (In strings smaller integer types are used as appropriate,
because there it actually saves memory.)