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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-12T16:21:31+00:00

I was expecting this to print a very large number and that same number

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I was expecting this to print a very large number and that same number -1 but it just prints -1 and -2, why is this?

fprintf(stderr, "%d\n", 0xffffffff);
fprintf(stderr, "%d\n", 0xfffffffe);
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The %d format is a signed integer (decimal). Integers are stored using two’s complement, which means that the high-order bit (8000 0000) indicates, in a manner of speaking, the sign of the value.

    Counting down from 3, values are:

    0000 0003 = 3
0000 0002 = 2
0000 0001 = 1
0000 0000 = 0
FFFF FFFF = -1
FFFF FFFE = -2

    etc.

    If you want FFFF FFFF to display as a large positive number, use the %u (unsigned) format.

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