How can I compute the range of signed and unsigned types

[Jim Phillips]

Hi,

In C++ you can use something like this:

#include <limits>

   numeric_limits<int>.min()
   numeric_limits<unsigned long>.max()

There are similar things for floating point.  See Stroustrup.

In plain C, there is limits.h, which defines symbols like INT_MIN,
LONG_MAX, FLT_MIN, DBL_MAX, etc.  The limits man page on Solaris lists a
bunch of them.  I think this is the answer you are looking for.

-Jim


On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, Chris Richard Adams wrote:

> This is my point - how can I compute this so my code could run on any
> machine. I need to show the range possible on any machine...how can I
> compute that?
> 
> Thanks,
> Chris
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Cownie [mailto:jcownie at etnus.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 10:19 AM
> To: Beowulf (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: How can I compute the range of signed and unsigned types 
> 
> 
> 
> Jag wrote : -
> 
> > Those sizes are defined for the C language.  In order words, no
> > matter if you're on a 32-bit machine or a 64-bit machine, an int is
> > always going to be 32-bit and thus have the same numeric range
> > because the standards say so.  This goes for all the basic types,
> > not just int's.
> 
> No, the C standard says nothing of the sort.
> 
> All the C standard says is that
> 
> 1) sizeof (char)  == 1
> 2) sizeof (short) >= sizeof (char)
> 3) sizeof (int)   >= sizeof (short)
> 4) sizeof (long)  >= sizeof (int)
> 5) sizeof (long long) >= sizeof (long).
> 
> It also does not specify that the representation of an int is two's
> complement, so even on machines with the same sizeof(int) the legal
> ranges could differ.
> 
> -- Jim 
> 
> James Cownie	<jcownie at etnus.com>
> Etnus, LLC.     +44 117 9071438
> http://www.etnus.com
> 
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