set to the minimum or the maximum value in the representable range, rather than wrapped around. On some processors like graphics processing units (GPUs) and digital signal processors (DSPs) which support saturation arithmetic, overflowed results would be 'clamped', i.e. The C11 standard states that for unsigned integers, modulo wrapping is the defined behavior and the term overflow never applies: 'a computation involving unsigned operands can never overflow.'

In particular, if the possibility has not been anticipated, overflow can compromise a program's reliability and security.įor some applications, such as timers and clocks, wrapping on overflow can be desirable. modulo a power of the radix, usually two in modern computers, but sometimes ten or another radix).Īn overflow condition may give results leading to unintended behavior. The most common result of an overflow is that the least significant representable digits of the result are stored the result is said to wrap around the maximum (i.e. In computer programming, an integer overflow occurs when an arithmetic operation attempts to create a numeric value that is outside of the range that can be represented with a given number of digits – either higher than the maximum or lower than the minimum representable value. This is wrapping in contrast to saturating. All digits are set to the maximum 9 and the next increment of the white digit causes a cascade of carry-over additions setting all digits to 0, but there is no higher digit (1,000,000s digit) to change to a 1, so the counter resets to zero. Integer overflow can be demonstrated through an odometer overflowing, a mechanical version of the phenomenon.

Java overflow error