In computing, signedness is a property of variables representing numbers in computer programs. A numeric variable is signed if it can represent both positive and negative numbers, and unsigned if it can only represent positive numbers.
Although this distinction is often made in computer processors, which require it to do arithmetic correctly, it is concealed by many programming languages. Generally, only low-level programming languages, such as assembly language and C, require programmers to make the distinction.
While signed numbers can represent negative numbers they lose a range of larger numbers which can only be represented with unsigned numbers of the same size (in bits). This is because in signed variables, roughly half the possible values are negative values. Unsigned variables can dedicate all the possible values to the positive number range.
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