The stdint.h
header at my company reads:
#define INT64_MIN -9223372036854775808LL
But in some code in my project, a programmer wrote:
#undef INT64_MIN
#define INT64_MIN (-9223372036854775807LL -1)
He then uses this definition in the code.
The project compiles with no warnings/errors.
When I attempted to remove his definition and use the default one, I got:
error: integer constant is so large that it is unsigned
The two definitions appear to be equivalent.
Why does one compile fine and the other fails?
-9223372036854775808LL
is not a single literal. It's an expression consisting of a unary-
operator applied to the constant9223372036854775808LL
.That constant is (barely) outside the range of type
long long
, which causes the warning.The expression
(-9223372036854775807LL -1)
, on the other hand, contains literals that are within the range oflong long
, and isan equallya more valid definition forINT64_MIN
, since it's of the correct type (as Steve Jessop points out in a comment).