Question

In Microsoft Visual C++, there is a constant called MAXDWORD defined in winnt.h as follows:

#define MAXDWORD 0xffffffff

It’s useful as a high initial value for a ‘double’ when one is searching for the lowest value in a collection.
Google though I might, I can’t find the equivalent in standard headers on Linux, but I’m willing to bet there must be one.

I’m using:

• uBuntu 10.04 64bit
• g++ 4.4.3

Answer 1

Standard solution is to use std::numeric_limits. For instance, std::numeric_limits<long>::max(). You could use any standard type instead of long there. You even can to specialize numeric_limits for custom types.