Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pilchuck!dataio!fnx!nazgul!bright
From: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The use of unsigned int
Keywords: unsigned int, C
Message-ID: <269@nazgul.UUCP>
Date: 25 Feb 91 18:16:59 GMT
References: <1255@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM> <3378@unisoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Organization: Zortech, Seattle
Lines: 11

In article <1255@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM> paul@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM (Paul Siu) writes:
/The most commonly use, and commonly returned type in C is probably int.  
/In some cases, wouldn't it be more appropriate if unsigned int was used
/instead, such as when you are indexing an array, or returning a length?

If the values for your variables are never negative, you should declare them
as unsigned. The reasons are:
1.	Documentation
2.	Aid to the optimizer. Certain optimizations are not possible if the
	variable could be negative, such as replacing a divide with a shift
	and replacing a loop index with a pointer.