Title
Undefined behavior in left-shift
Status
cd3
Section
7.6.7 [expr.shift]
Submitter
Howard Hinnant

Created on 2012-02-04.00:00:00 last changed 122 months ago

Messages

Date: 2012-10-15.00:00:00

[Moved to DR at the October, 2012 meeting.]

Date: 2012-02-15.00:00:00

Proposed resolution (February, 2012):

Change 7.6.7 [expr.shift] paragraph 2 as follows:

...if E1 has a signed type and non-negative value, and E1 ⨯ 2E2 is representable in the corresponding unsigned type of the result type, then that value, converted to the result type, is the resulting value; otherwise, the behavior is undefined.
Date: 2012-02-04.00:00:00

The current wording of 7.6.7 [expr.shift] paragraph 2 makes it undefined behavior to create the most-negative integer of a given type by left-shifting a (signed) 1 into the sign bit, even though this is not uncommonly done and works correctly on the majority of (twos-complement) architectures:

...if E1 has a signed type and non-negative value, and E1 ⨯ 2E2 is representable in the result type, then that is the resulting value; otherwise, the behavior is undefined.

As a result, this technique cannot be used in a constant expression, which will break a significant amount of code.

History
Date User Action Args
2014-03-03 00:00:00adminsetstatus: drwp -> cd3
2013-05-03 00:00:00adminsetstatus: dr -> drwp
2012-11-03 00:00:00adminsetmessages: + msg4136
2012-11-03 00:00:00adminsetstatus: ready -> dr
2012-02-27 00:00:00adminsetmessages: + msg3707
2012-02-04 00:00:00admincreate