I tried to understand the logic behind it but couldn't. What is happening behind the scene and how it's going on for infinite times?
char j=1;
while(j <= 255)
{
printf("%d", j);
j = j+1;
}
In C char may be signed or unsigned - that is implementation dependent. If signed, then the range (on most platforms) is -128 to +127 so always less than 255.
Changing the type as follows:
unsigned char j=1;
will remove the ambiguity. But even then j <= 255 will always be true on most common platforms because it can never be greater then 255. In this case it will "wrap" to zero, so:
while(j != 0)
will work, or more simply and with no platform dependency issues, just change the type of j to int:
int j=1;
which makes much more sense.
Related
I am reading Carnegie Mellon slides on computer systems for my quiz. In the slide page 49 :
Counting Down with Unsigned
Proper way to use unsigned as loop index
unsigned i;
for (i = cnt-2; i < cnt; i--)
a[i] += a[i+1];
Even better
size_t i;
for (i = cnt-2; i < cnt; i--)
a[i] += a[i+1];
I don't get why it's not going to be infinite loop. I am decrementing i and it is unsigned so it should be always less than cnt. Please explain.
The best option for down counting loops I have found so far is to use
for(unsigned i=N; i-->0; ) { }
This invokes the loop body with i=N-1 ... 0. This works the same way for both signed and unsigned data types and does not rely on any overflows.
This loop is simply relying on the fact that i will be decremented past 0, which makes it the max uint value. Which breaks the loop because now i < cnt == false.
Per Overflowing of Unsigned Int:
unsigned numbers can't overflow, but instead wrap around using the
properties of modulo.
Both the C and C++ standard guarantee this uint wrapping behavior, but it's undefined for signed integers.
The goal of the loops is to loop from cnt-2 down to 0. It achieves the effect of writing i >= 0.
The previous slide correctly talks about why a loop condition of i >= 0 doesn't work. Unsigned numbers are always greater than or equal to 0, so such a condition would be vacuously true. A loop condition of i < cnt ends up looping until i goes past 0 and wraps around. When you decrement an unsigned 0 it becomes UINT_MAX (232 - 1 for a 32-bit integer). When that happens, i < cnt is guaranteed to be false, and the loop terminates.
I would not write loops like this. It is technically correct but very poor style. Good code is not just correct, it is readable, so others can easily figure out what it's doing.
It's taking advantage of what happens when you decrement unsigned integer 0. Here's a simple example.
unsigned cnt = 2;
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
printf("%u\n", cnt);
cnt--;
}
That produces...
2
1
0
4294967295
4294967294
Unsigned integer 0 - 1 becomes UINT_MAX. So instead of looking for -1, you watch for when your counter becomes bigger than its initial state.
Simplifying the example a bit, here's how you can count down to 0 from 5 (exclusive).
unsigned i;
unsigned cnt = 5;
for (i = cnt-1; i < cnt; i--) {
printf("%d\n", i);
}
That prints:
4
3
2
1
0
On the final iteration i = UINT_MAX which is guaranteed to be larger than cnt so i < cnt is false.
size_t is "better" because it's unsigned and it's as big as the biggest thing in C, so you don't have to ensure that cnt is the same type as i.
This appears to be an alternative expression of the established idiom for implementing the same thing
for (unsigned i = N; i != -1; --i)
...;
They simply replaced the more readable condition of i != -1 with a slightly more cryptic i < cnt. When 0 is decremented in the unsigned domain it actually wraps around to the UINT_MAX value, which compares equal to -1 (in the unsigned domain) and which is greater than or equal to cnt. So, either i != -1 or i < cnt works as a condition for continuing iterations.
Why would they do it that way specifically? Apparently because they start from cnt - 2 and the value of cnt can be smaller than 2, in which case their condition does indeed work properly (and i != -1 doesn't). Aside from such situations there's no reason to involve cnt into the termination condition. One might say that an even better idea would be to pre-check the value of cnt and then use the i != -1 idiom
if (cnt >= 2)
for (unsigned i = cnt - 2; i != -1; --i)
...;
Note, BTW, that as long as the starting value of i is known to be non-negative, the implementation based on the i != -1 condition works regardless of whether i is signed or unsigned.
I think you are confused with int and unsigned int data types. These two are different. In the int datatype (2 byte storage size), you have its range from -32,768 to 32,767 whereas in the unsigned int datatype (2 byte storage size). you have the range from 0 to 65,535 .
In the above example mentioned, you are using the variable i of type unsigned int. It will decrements up to i=0 and then ends the for loop as per the semantics.
I have a problem that is, when I sum the values of an array (that are all positive, I verified by printing the values of the array), I end up with a negative value. My code for the sum is:
int summcp = 0;
for (k = 0; k < SIMUL; k++)
{
summcp += mcp[k];
}
printf("summcp: %d.\n", summcp);`
Any hint about this problem would be appreciated.
You are invoking undefined behaviour.
As integer variables can only hold a limited range of values, going beyond this range is undefined by the standard. Basically anything can happen. In your (and the most common) case, it simply wraps around its binary representation. As this is used for negative values, you will read this as such.
To circomvent this, use a type for summcp which can hold all possible values. An alternative would be to check if the next addition will overflow by:
if ( summcp >= INT_MAX - mcp[k] ) {
// handle positive overflow
}
Note that the above only works for mcp[k] >= 0 and positive overflow. The other 3 cases have to be handled differently. It is in general best, faster and much easier to use a large enough type for the sum and test lateron for overflow, if required.
Do not feel tempted to add and test the result!. As integer overflow is undefined behaviour, this will not work for all architectures.
This smells like an overflow issue; you might want to add a check against that like
for (k = 0; k < SIMUL && (INT_MAX - summcp > mcp[k]); k++ )
{
sumcp += mcp[k];
}
if (k < SIMUL)
{
// sum of all mcp values is larger than what an int can represent
}
else
{
// use summcp
}
If you are running into overflow issues, you might want to use a wider type for summcp like long or long long.
EDIT
The problem is that the behavior of signed integer overflow is not well-defined; you'll get a different result for INT_MAX + 1 based on whether your platform uses one's complement, two's complement, sign magnitude, or some other representation for signed integers.
Like I said in my comment below, if mcp can contain negative values, you should add a check for underflow as well.
Regardless of the type you use (int, long, long long), you should keep the over- and underflow checks.
If mcp only ever contains non-negative values, then consider using an unsigned type for your sum. The advantage of this is that the behavior of unsigned integer overflow is well-defined, and the result will be the sum of all elements of mcp modulo UINT_MAX (or ULONG_MAX, or ULLONG_MAX, etc.).
Declare variable summcp like
long long int summcp = 0;
I think your final output is going out of range. For this you will have to declare summcp as long long int
long long int summcp = 0;
for (k = 0; k < SIMUL; k++)
{
summcp += mcp[k];
}
printf("summcp: %lld.\n", summcp);
int variable throws garbage value if its range is exceeded.
I've always seen people writing for(int ii = 0; ii < 50; ii ++)
but for numbers < 256, why don't people write char ii instead of int ii since it's sure that it will be 8bits and not more?
C does all arithmetic of values smaller than int on the value converted to int, and the compiler will likely put ii into a register, so going for a smaller type won't win you anything. It might even be worse due to constantly converting back to (char).
Next, you have a problem: char is only guaranteed to go up to 127, so 255 would be out of bounds. You would have to go for unsigned char.
Not that that signifies in your example loop. For this one, there's most likely no difference after compiling.
I wrote this simple code to generate 4th power of all positive integers up to 1005. It works fine only up to integer 215. After that it gives erroneous readings. why so?
# include<stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int i;
unsigned long long int j;
for (i = 1; i <= 1005; i++){
j = i*i*i*i;
printf("%i.........%llu\n",i,j);
}
return 0;
}
You can fix it by making this small change.
unsigned long long i;
The problem is that in the line j = i*i*i*i;, the right hand side is being calculated as an int before it is being assigned to j. Because of this if i^4 exceeds integer limits, it will basically start to go first negative and start cycling around when higher bits get clipped. When the negative number is assigned to j, since j is unsigned, -i becomes max - i, which is where the huge numbers come from. You will also need to change the printf format specifier from %i to %llu for i.
You can also fix this by doing the below
j = (unsigned long long)i*i*i*i;
This basically forces a cast up to the type of j before performing the multiplication.
Sanity check - 215 ^4 = 2136750625 which is very close to the upper limit of signed int of 2,147,483,647.
i*i produces an int. And so do i*i*i and i*i*i*i. 215 is the greatest positive integer whose 4th power fits into a 32-bit int.
Beyond that the result is typically truncated (typically because strictly speaking you are having a case of undefined behavior; signed integer overflows result in UB per the C standard).
You may want to cast i to unsigned long long or define it as unsigned long long, so the multiplications are 64-bit:
j = (unsigned long long)i*i*i*i;
I have a loop that has to go from N to 0 (inclusively). My i variable is of type size_t which is usually unsigned. I am currently using the following code:
for (size_t i = N; i != (size_t) -1; --i) {
...
}
Is that correct? Is there a better way to handle the condition?
Thanks,
Vincent.
Yes, it's correct and it is a very common approach. I wouldn't consider changing it.
Arithmetic on unsigned integer types is guaranteed to use modulo 2^N arithmetic (where N is the number of value bits in the type) and behaviour on overflow is well defined. The result is converted into the range 0 to 2^N - 1 by adding or subtracting multiples of 2^N (i.e. modulo 2^N arithmetic).
-1 converted to an unsigned integer type (of which size_t is one) converts to 2^N - 1. -- also uses modulo 2^N arithmetic for unsigned types so an unsigned type with value 0 will be decremented to 2^N - 1. Your loop termination condition is correct.
Just because for has a convenient place to put a test at the beginning of each iteration doesn't mean you have to use it. To handle N to 0 inclusive, the test should be at the end, at least if you care about handling the maximum value. Don't let the convenience suck you in to putting the test in the wrong place.
for (size_t i = N;; --i) {
...
if (i == 0) break;
}
A do-while loop would also work but then you'd additionally give up i being scoped to the loop.
You can use this:
for (size_t i = n + 1; i-- > 0;)
{
}
Hope that helps.
Personally, I would just use a different loop construct, but to each their own:
size_t i = N;
do {
...
} while (i --> 0);
(you could just use (i--) as the loop condition, but one should never pass up a chance to use the --> "operator").
for ( size_t i = N ; i <= N ; i-- ) { .... }
This would do it because size_t is an unsigned int. Unsigned ints are 32bits. When the variable i has a value of 0, you want your loop to execute the condition. If you perform i--, the computer does
00000000000000000000000000000000
-00000000000000000000000000000001
Which results in a clear overflow, giving a value of 111111111...1. For a signed two's complement integer, this value is clearly negative. However, the type of i is an unsigned int so the computer will interpret 111111...1 to be a very large positive value.
So you have a few options:
1) Do as above and make the loop terminate when overflow occurs.
2) Make the loop run from i = 0 to i <= N but use (N-i) instead of i in everywhere in your loop. For example, myArray[i] would become myArray[N-i] (off by one depending on what the value of N actually represents).
3) Make the condition of your for loop exploit the precedence of the unary -- operator. As another user posted,
for ( size_t i = N + 1 ; i-- > 0 ; ) { ... }
This will set i to N+1, check to see if the condition N+1 > 0 still holds. It does, but i-- has a side effect, so the value of i is decremented to i = N. Keep going until you get to i = 1. The condition will be test, 1 > 0 is true, the side effect occurs, then i = 0 and it executse.
You can use a second variable as the loop counter to make the range of iteration clear to a future reviewer.
for (size_t j=0, i=N; j<=N; ++j, --i) {
// code here ignores j and uses i which runs from N to 0
...
}
for (i=N; i+1; i--)
Since unsigned integer will roll into its max value when decremented from zero, you can try the following, provided N is less then that maximum value (someone please correct me if this is UB):
for ( size_t i = N; i <= N; i-- ) { /* ... */ }