Why does incrementing a Java int eventually result in a negative number? - java

I was trying to check different inputs and creating infinite loops in java and I found that once the int is getting incremented over the maximum limit it turns in to negative -2147482958. I am just increasing the int in infinite loop...
Code:
public static void infiniteLoop(){
for(int i=0;i>-1;i++){
i = i + 1000;
System.out.println(i);
}
}
The last to value gets printed out is,
2147483337
-2147482958
Now, Why does it goes to negative?

Why does it goes to negative?
Because that is what is specified to happen in Java when an int calculation overflows.
JLS 15.18.2
"If an integer addition overflows, then the result is the low-order bits of the mathematical sum as represented in some sufficiently large two's-complement format. If overflow occurs, then the sign of the result is not the same as the sign of the mathematical sum of the two operand values."
(This doesn't explicitly say that overflow always gives a negative number. And it doesn't always. But if you apply the rule, it does explain why incrementing Integer.MAX_VALUE by +1 gives you Integer.MIN_VALUE ...)

According to the documentation:
The int data type is a 32-bit signed two's complement integer. It has a minimum value of -2,147,483,648 (0x80000000) and a maximum value of 2,147,483,647 (0x7FFFFFFF) (inclusive)
So when you add one to an integer's max value:
0x7FFFFFFF + 0x00000001 = 0x80000000 (-2,147,483,648)

Because when the value of an int reaches Integer.MAX_VALUE, incrementing it causes overflow and hence wraps around to Integer.MIN_VALUE.
To use larger integers, use a long instead which has 64 bits.

Because int ranges from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. Hence,once it reaches it upper limit, it overflows and starts from the negative.
See the docs:
The int data type is a 32-bit signed two's complement integer. It has a minimum value of -2,147,483,648 and a maximum value of 2,147,483,647 (inclusive)

Related

Why is 2,147,483,647 the max int value?

Can someone provide me with a detailed explanation of why 2,147,483,647 is the maximum integer value in Java?
Because the total value an int can hold in Java is 2^32 (2 to the power of 32, in other words a 32 bit number), for which half is reserved for negative numbers and half for positive numbers.

Assign negative int to long in java

I've 2 integer values stored in a bytebuffer, in little-endian format. These integers are actually the 32-bit pieces of a long. I've to store them as a class' member variables, loBits and hiBits.
This is what I did:
long loBits = buffer.getInt(offset);
long hiBits = buffer.getInt(offset + Integer.BYTES);
I want to know why directly assigning signed int to long is wrong. I kind of know what's going on, but would really appreciate an explanation.
The int I read from the buffer is signed (because Java). If it is negative then directly assigning it to a long value (or casting it like (long)) would change all the higher order bits in the long to the signed bit value.
For e.g. Hex representation of an int, -1684168480 is 9b9da0e0. If I assign this int to a long, all higher order 32 bits would become F.
int negativeIntValue = -1684168480;
long val1 = negativeIntValue;
long val2 = (long) negativeIntValue;
Hex representation of:
negativeIntValue is 0x9b9da0e0
val1 is 0xffffffff9b9da0e0
val2 is 0xffffffff9b9da0e0
However, if I mask the negativeIntValue with 0x00000000FFFFFFFFL, I get a long which has the same hex representation as negativeIntValue and a positive long value of 2610798816.
So my questions are:
Is my understanding correct?
Why does this happen?
Yes, your understanding is correct (at least if I understood your understanding correctly).
The reason this happens is because (most) computers use 2's complement to store signed values. So when assigning a smaller datatype to a larger one, the value is sign extended meaning that the excess part of the datatype is filled with 0 or 1 bits depending on whether the original value was positive or negative.
Also related is the difference between >> and >>> operators in Java. The first one performs sign extending (keeping negative values negative) the second one does not (shifting a negative value makes it positive).
The reason for this is that negative values are stored as two's complement.
Why do we use two's complement?
In a fixed width numbering system what happens, if you substract 1 from 0?
0000b - 0001b -> 1111b
and what is the next lesser number to 0? It is -1.
Therfore we thread a binary number with all bits set (for a signed datatype) as -1
The big advantage is that the CPU does not need to do any special operation when changing from positive to negative numbers. It handles 5 - 3 the same as 3 - 5

Why printing same values for signed and unsigned vars in java? [duplicate]

I have a test tomorrow and I can't understand my books explanation, I appreciate the help:
public class TestClass{
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{
int a = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
int b = -a;
System.out.println( a+ " "+b);
}
}
Output: -2147483648 -2147483648
Why does this print 2 negative numbers of the same magnitude and not a positive and negative?
Because of silent integer overflow: Integer.MIN_VALUE is -2^31 and Integer.MAX_VALUE is 2^31-1, so -Integer.MIN_VALUE is 2^31, which is Integer.MAX_VALUE + 1, which by definition is too large for an integer. So it overflows and becomes Integer.MIN_VALUE...
You can also check that:
System.out.println(Integer.MAX_VALUE + 1);
prints the same thing.
More technically, the result is defined by the Java Language Specification #15.18.2:
If an integer addition overflows, then the result is the low-order bits of the mathematical sum as represented in some sufficiently large two's-complement format. If overflow occurs, then the sign of the result is not the same as the sign of the mathematical sum of the two operand values.
Basically, because Integer.MAX_VALUE is actually only 2147483647, so -Integer.MIN_VALUE, which would be +2147483648, actually overflows the capacity of the internal binary representation of integers. Thus, the result "loops around" back to Integer.MIN_VALUE, or -2147483648.
If you did long b = -((long)a); instead, you would get the expected result.
To show this even more clearly:
Integer.MIN_VALUE is -2^31 = -2147483648
Integer.MAX_VALUE is 2^31-1 = 2147483647
/*notice this is 1 less than the negative value above*/
Integer.MAX_VALUE can not take 2147483648. This is too large number for Integer by exactly 1. This causes the number to go back on the scale from max value back to starting poing which is the min value.
A fixed number of binary bits can encode an even number of things. That means that you can't have a sequence that's exactly centered on zero, since that would require an is number of things to be symmetrical. The closest thing you can get to having zero in the middle of the sentence is to split it as either negative and non-negative, or positive and non-positive. Normal twos complement encoding does the former. So 32 bits span the range from -2^31 to 2^31-1. Zero is in the non-negative half of the sequence, and you have one negative number that can not be properly negated.
Java ints are stored in a 32-bit two's compliment form. Similar results applies for all two's compliment representations. The anomalous behavior is due to the extra negative integer which is an artifat of two's compliment.
-2147483748 has a leadbitwise representation of
10000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
and the negative of a number is achieved by flipping all the bits and adding one to it. The largest positive int will have a bitwise representation of
01111111 11111111 11111111 11111111
which is 2147483647. We then add one more, so bitwise, we have
10000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 == -2147483648
This extra integer is an artifact of the two's compliment representation and operations with this number can have undesirable consequences. -2147483748 is indeed unique among the ints!

Why is the maximum capacity of a Java HashMap 1<<30 and not 1<<31?

Why is the maximum capacity of a Java HashMap 1<<30 and not 1<<31, even though the max value of an int is 231-1? The maximum capacity is initialized as static final int MAXIMUM_CAPACITY = 1 << 30;
Java uses signed integers which means the first bit is used to store the sign of the number (positive/negative).
A four byte integer has 32 bits in which the numerical portion may only span 31 bits due to the signing bit. This limits the range of the number to 2^31 - 1 (due to inclusion of 0) to - (2^31).
While it would be possible for a hash map to handle quantities of items between 2^30 and 2^31-1 without having to use larger integer types, writing code which works correctly even near the upper limits of a language's integer types is difficult. Further, in a language which treats integers as an abstract algebraic ring that "wraps" on overflow, rather than as numbers which should either yield numerically-correct results or throw exceptions when they cannot do so, it may be hard to ensure that there aren't any cases where overflows would cause invalid operations to go undetected.
Specifying an upper limit of 2^30 or even 2^29, and ensuring correct behavior on things no larger than that, is often much easier than trying to ensure correct behavior all the way up to 2^31-1. Absent a particular reason to squeeze out every last bit of range, it's generally better to use the simpler approach.
By default, the int data type is a 32-bit signed two's complement integer, which has a minimum value of -2^31 and a maximum value of (2^31)-1, ranges from –2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.
The first bit is reserved for the sign bit — it is 1 if the number is negative and 0 if it is positive.
1 << 30 is equal to 1,073,741,824
it's two's complement binary integer is 01000000-00000000-00000000-00000000.
1 << 31 is equal to -2,147,483,648.
it's two's complement binary integer is 10000000-00000000-00000000-00000000.
It says the maximum size to which hash-map can expand is 1,073,741,824 = 2^30.
You are thinking of unsigned, with signed upper range is (2^31)-1

Java Integer.MIN_VALUE's negative then compare yields two negatives

I have a test tomorrow and I can't understand my books explanation, I appreciate the help:
public class TestClass{
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{
int a = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
int b = -a;
System.out.println( a+ " "+b);
}
}
Output: -2147483648 -2147483648
Why does this print 2 negative numbers of the same magnitude and not a positive and negative?
Because of silent integer overflow: Integer.MIN_VALUE is -2^31 and Integer.MAX_VALUE is 2^31-1, so -Integer.MIN_VALUE is 2^31, which is Integer.MAX_VALUE + 1, which by definition is too large for an integer. So it overflows and becomes Integer.MIN_VALUE...
You can also check that:
System.out.println(Integer.MAX_VALUE + 1);
prints the same thing.
More technically, the result is defined by the Java Language Specification #15.18.2:
If an integer addition overflows, then the result is the low-order bits of the mathematical sum as represented in some sufficiently large two's-complement format. If overflow occurs, then the sign of the result is not the same as the sign of the mathematical sum of the two operand values.
Basically, because Integer.MAX_VALUE is actually only 2147483647, so -Integer.MIN_VALUE, which would be +2147483648, actually overflows the capacity of the internal binary representation of integers. Thus, the result "loops around" back to Integer.MIN_VALUE, or -2147483648.
If you did long b = -((long)a); instead, you would get the expected result.
To show this even more clearly:
Integer.MIN_VALUE is -2^31 = -2147483648
Integer.MAX_VALUE is 2^31-1 = 2147483647
/*notice this is 1 less than the negative value above*/
Integer.MAX_VALUE can not take 2147483648. This is too large number for Integer by exactly 1. This causes the number to go back on the scale from max value back to starting poing which is the min value.
A fixed number of binary bits can encode an even number of things. That means that you can't have a sequence that's exactly centered on zero, since that would require an is number of things to be symmetrical. The closest thing you can get to having zero in the middle of the sentence is to split it as either negative and non-negative, or positive and non-positive. Normal twos complement encoding does the former. So 32 bits span the range from -2^31 to 2^31-1. Zero is in the non-negative half of the sequence, and you have one negative number that can not be properly negated.
Java ints are stored in a 32-bit two's compliment form. Similar results applies for all two's compliment representations. The anomalous behavior is due to the extra negative integer which is an artifat of two's compliment.
-2147483748 has a leadbitwise representation of
10000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
and the negative of a number is achieved by flipping all the bits and adding one to it. The largest positive int will have a bitwise representation of
01111111 11111111 11111111 11111111
which is 2147483647. We then add one more, so bitwise, we have
10000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 == -2147483648
This extra integer is an artifact of the two's compliment representation and operations with this number can have undesirable consequences. -2147483748 is indeed unique among the ints!

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