Re: signed extended bitvalues ? (int x : 1; has value -1 !)

From:
Ulrich Eckhardt <eckhardt@satorlaser.com>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.language
Date:
Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:18:21 +0200
Message-ID:
<u5qki5-kod.ln1@satorlaser.homedns.org>
mario semo wrote:

is there any way to avoid sign extension of bitvalues?

When i use
int x : 1;
x=1;
then x has the value of -1 (0xffffffff).


Well, of course, except that it probably isn't 0xfffffff. The reason is that
a signed value's highest bit has the value -2^n, i.e. that it is negative.

template <class BaseInt>
class Foo
{

[...]

  void bar()
  {
   BaseInt bitfield = x1 << 0
                | x2 << 1
                | x3 << 1
                | x4 << 1
                ;


Since BaseInt is signed, so is bitshift arithmetic. You probably want to
avoid this, because you need precise unsigned arithmetic when assembling
bits. Firstly, let me stress the point that I would try to avoid signed
numbers when fiddling with single bits myself. Otherwise, you have a simple
chance: you simply map BaseInt to its unsigned type for internal use and
manipulation.

  // traits base template (unused as is)
  template<typename Integer>
  struct IntegerTraits;
  // specialisation for int and unsigned
  template<>
  struct IntegerTraits<int>
  { typedef unsigned UnsignedType; };
  template<>
  struct IntegerTraits<unsigned>
  { typedef unsigned UnsignedType; };

Uli

  
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