Signedness - in Programming Languages

In Programming Languages

For most architectures, there is no signed–unsigned type distinction in the machine language. Nevertheless, arithmetic instructions usually set different CPU flags such as the carry flag for unsigned arithmetic and the overflow flag useful for signed one, those values can be taken into account by subsequent branch or arithmetic commands.

The C programming language, with its derivatives, implements the signedness for all integer data types, as well as for "character". The unsigned modifier defines the type to be unsigned. The default integer signedness is signed, but could be set explicitly with signed modifier. Integer literals can be made unsigned with U suffix: for example, 0xFFFFFFFF gives −1, but 0xFFFFFFFFU gives 4,294,967,295 respectively for a 32-bit code.

However, an issue that will occasionally occur when using both signed and unsigned numbers is called a signed/unsigned mismatch. Examples of this would be when comparing Number 1 and Number 2, or assigning the value of Number 1 to Number 2, when Number 1 is signed and Number 2 is unsigned (or vice versa).

Compilers will usually output a Warning, but should continue to compile the code anyway, such as with Visual Studio (2010 in this example):

Warning 25 warning C4018: '<=' : signed/unsigned mismatch 23417

(A signed/unsigned mismatch).

An issue with signed and unsigned numbers is also when attempting to cast one number into another with different signedness as this can potentially cause data corruption due to the range of numbers for a signed integer differing to that of an unsigned integer.