Question

Very basic question: how do I write a short literal in C++?

I know the following:

• 2 is an int
• 2U is an unsigned int
• 2L is a long
• 2LL is a long long
• 2.0f is a float
• 2.0 is a double
• '\2' is a char.

But how would I write a short literal? I tried 2S but that gives a compiler warning.

Answer 1

((short)2) 

Yeah, it’s not strictly a short literal, more of a casted-int, but the behaviour is the same and I think there isn’t a direct way of doing it.

That’s what I’ve been doing because I couldn’t find anything about it. I would guess that the compiler would be smart enough to compile this as if it’s a short literal (i.e. it wouldn’t actually allocate an int and then cast it every time).

The following illustrates how much you should worry about this:

a = 2L; b = 2.0; c = (short)2; d = '\2'; 

Compile -> disassemble ->

movl    $2, _a movl    $2, _b movl    $2, _c movl    $2, _d