SIGNED AND UNSIGNED

[SHALINI PATEL]

HI everybody..
I have a silly doubt.. All integral literals(byte, short, int and char) r signed.....
Can somebody explain in simple words the difference between signed and unsigned literals.
Thanks in advance..
shalini

[anil bisht]

hi
i suppose char is not signed its unsigned..
signed means if the MSB is 1( in bit representation) then the number is negetive.. else positive..
suppose for bytes
if this is signed
11111111 -> -1
if unsigned ( but java dosent support unsigned byte)
11111111 -> 255
HTH
anil

[Javed Khan]

It's not fair to say that all interger types in java are signed. It is not true. JLS says that 'char' is unsigned and it is part of integral type. All numeric data types are SIGNED.
char is the only UNSIGNED integral type.
The following example may clear the confusion.
int i=-1; //compiles
byte i=-1;//compiles.
char i=1;//compiles
char i=-1;//Explicit cast needed to convert int to char,because char type is UNSIGNED
char i=(char)-1;//compiles fine.
Correct me if I'm wrong.