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When is it appropriate to use an unsigned variable over a signed one? What about in a for loop?
I hear a lot of opinions about this and I wanted to see if there was anything resembling a consensus.
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < someThing.length(); i++) { SomeThing var = someThing.at(i); // You get the idea. } I know Java doesn't have unsigned values, and that must have been a concious decision on Sun Microsystems' part.
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The term "unsigned" in computer programming indicates a variable that can hold only positive numbers. The term "signed" in computer code indicates that a variable can hold negative and positive values. The property can be applied to most of the numeric data types including int, char, short and long.
Unsigned integers are used when we know that the value that we are storing will always be non-negative (zero or positive). Note: it is almost always the case that you could use a regular integer variable in place of an unsigned integer.
A signed integer is a 32-bit datum that encodes an integer in the range [-2147483648 to 2147483647]. An unsigned integer is a 32-bit datum that encodes a nonnegative integer in the range [0 to 4294967295].
Variables such as integers can be represent in two ways, i.e., signed and unsigned. Signed numbers use sign flag or can be distinguish between negative values and positive values. Whereas unsigned numbers stored only positive numbers but not negative numbers.
I was glad to find a good conversation on this subject, as I hadn't really given it much thought before.
In summary, signed is a good general choice - even when you're dead sure all the numbers are positive - if you're going to do arithmetic on the variable (like in a typical for loop case).
unsigned starts to make more sense when:
Personally, I like signed because I don't trust myself to stay consistent and avoid mixing the two types (like the article warns against).
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