Is it safe to assign -1 to an unsigned int, or other unsigned c++ data type, if I need to get the max value?
Is there any situation where it won’t give me the highest value an unsigned data type can contain?
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Is it safe to assign -1 to an unsigned int, or other unsigned c++ data type, if I need to get the max value?
Is there any situation where it won’t give me the highest value an unsigned data type can contain?
To be on a safe side, use
std::numeric_limits<unsigned int>::max().Casting -1 to unsigned would work on mainstream platforms, but it is not guaranteed by the standard AFAIR.
UPD: I’ll correct myself. (unsigned)-1 is required to be UINT_MAX in C, see the answer here