lass="code">int64</code> types, which can be interpreted either as signed or
    unsigned numbers.</p>

<p>8-bit and 16-bit integers are represented by the <code class="code">int</code> type,
    which has more bits than the binary encoding.  These extra bits
    are handled as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Functions that decode signed (resp. unsigned) 8-bit or 16-bit
    integers represented by <code class="code">int</code> values sign-extend
    (resp. zero-extend) their result.</li>
<li>Functions that encode 8-b