why CountDownLatch.getCount() returns a long but not an int?

Question

I looked into the code, everything is int -- the parameter passed to CountDownLatch constructor is int, the variable in Sync is int, the return type of Sync.getCount() is int. But CountDownLatch.getCount() returns a long? Wondering why.

Answer 1

I don't know if you will find a sufficient answer to that question unless someone who designed that API answers, but it does say it is for "debugging and testing".

public long getCount() {...} // just for debugging and testing