Assign and compare against uint(-1)

Asked Mar 29 '18 at 20:14

Active May 10 '18 at 17:28

Viewed 35 times

In StarCitizen Bugsmashers about tick rates a code snippet like this is visible:

uint i = someBool ? someuint : uint(-1);
// ... some other code ...
if (i == uint(-1)) { /* do something */ }

In case someBool is false, then i = 4294967295 which is 0xFFFFFFFF/the maximum 32bit uint value:

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
    const auto i = uint(-1);
    if (i == uint(-1))
    {
        std::cout << i;
    }
}

I assume, the motivation for doing this is to avoid having to use another control variable for the if statement. Is the construction of uint(-1) defined behaviour? If yes, why?

edited May 10 '18 at 17:28

Rostyslav Dzinko

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asked Mar 29 '18 at 20:14

Roi Danton

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Do you mean `uint(-1)` or `(uint)-1`? – tadman Mar 29 '18 at 20:17
1

The construction `uint(-1)`, not the cast. – Roi Danton Mar 29 '18 at 20:18
1

Why that instead of something like `-1UL`? This is really *odd* code. – tadman Mar 29 '18 at 20:21

Assign and compare against uint(-1)

0 Answers0