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C++ operator % guarantees

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Is it guaranteed that (-x) % m, where x and m are positive in c++ standard (c++0x) is negative and equals to -(x % m)?

I know it's right on all machines I know.

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RiaD Avatar asked Oct 03 '12 14:10

RiaD


2 Answers

In addition to Luchian's answer, this is the corresponding part from the C++11 standard:

The binary / operator yields the quotient, and the binary % operator yields the remainder from the division of the first expression by the second. If the second operand of / or % is zero the behavior is undefined. For integral operands the / operator yields the algebraic quotient with any fractional part discarded; if the quotient a/b is representable in the type of the result, (a/b)*b + a%b is equal to a.

Which misses the last sentence. So the part

(a/b)*b + a%b is equal to a

Is the only reference to rely on, and that implies that a % b will always have the sign of a, given the truncating behaviour of /. So if your implementation adheres to the C++11 standard in this regard, the sign and value of a modulo operation is indeed perfectly defined for negative operands.

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Christian Rau Avatar answered Oct 19 '22 10:10

Christian Rau


5.6 Multiplicative operators

4) The binary / operator yields the quotient, and the binary % operator yields the remainder from the division of the first expression by the second. If the second operand of / or % is zero the behavior is undefined; otherwise (a/b)*b + a%b is equal to a. If both operands are nonnegative then the remainder is nonnegative; if not, the sign of the remainder is implementation-defined (emphasis mine)

This is from C++03 though. :(

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Luchian Grigore Avatar answered Oct 19 '22 08:10

Luchian Grigore