From: Sebastian Redl (sebastian.redl_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-05-28 09:22:43
David Abrahams wrote:
>Sebastian Redl <sebastian.redl_at_[hidden]> writes:
>
>
>
>>The main (only, really, when it comes down to it) difference
>>between a signed and an unsigned integer is that an unsigned integer is
>>defined never to have a value less than 0. There are very valid reasons
>>to enforce such a restriction,
>>
>>
>
>For example?
>
>
Various physical quantities only make sense for non-negative values. It
would be conceivable to use a boundless unsigned integer as the value
type in the PQS library. Things like length - something cannot have
negative length, and having that restriction enforced by the type itself
would be convenient.
I have no doubt that there are other applications too. size_t is
unsigned - of course, a boundless int should not be necessary for
specifying array indices, but similar applications might exist.
Sebastian Redl