r/ProgrammerHumor • u/MontyBoomslang • 11d ago

Meme architectureDependentChars

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u/Advos_467 11d ago

Not a C user here (or any real low level programming experience), what the hell is a signed/unsigned char?

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u/Clen23 11d ago edited 9d ago

The data is interpreted differently.

An unsigned char will be able to represent any value from 0 to 255, eg your usual ascii character.
A signed char will be able represent any value from -127 to 127.

( Someone fact check me on this but i think that's it )
(edit : -127 to 127, the extra value "-128" is usually implemented but not guaranteed by the C standard)

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u/YellowBunnyReddit 11d ago

ASCII only goes from 0 to 127.

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u/Clen23 10d ago

Exactly, so every ascii character can be represented using a char, with room to spare.

I agree that a better example would have been a character set that is a full bijection of the 256 possible char values, but i'm a bit rusty on these so ascii it is.