What this unsigned integer overflow question tests
This is an easy C++ language-knowledge question that probes your understanding of how unsigned integers behave at the boundary of their representable range. It's a foundational topic for systems programming and low-latency trading code, where unexpected wraparound can silently corrupt logic.
To answer correctly, you need to know the C++ standard's guarantee about unsigned arithmetic: overflow is well-defined and wraps predictably modulo 2^n, where n is the bit width. Signed integer overflow, by contrast, is undefined behaviour. This distinction matters when writing robust financial code.
- Unsigned vs. signed integer semantics
- Modular arithmetic and wraparound
- How to avoid silent bugs in boundary conditions