Performance of signed vs unsigned types

T

Thomas Scrace

Hi all,

In K&R there is an exercise to compute the range of possible values for each C
type. In doing this I have written two functions that are identical, except for
the fact that one uses signed long ints, and the other uses unsigned long ints.
I have found that the function that uses the unsigned ints completes in a few seconds,
while the signed version takes so long that I have never had the patience to
wait for it to end. The only operators I am using on the variables are increment
and decrement.

Is there a difference in performance between these types? Is this restricted to
long ints, or is there a general difference between all signed/non-signed C
types? Could this be something compiler or processor specific? I am using GCC on
the x86 platform (intel core i5).

Thanks,

Tom
 
J

James Kuyper

Hi all,

In K&R there is an exercise to compute the range of possible values for each C
type. In doing this I have written two functions that are identical, except for
the fact that one uses signed long ints, and the other uses unsigned long ints.
I have found that the function that uses the unsigned ints completes in a few seconds,
while the signed version takes so long that I have never had the patience to
wait for it to end. The only operators I am using on the variables are increment
and decrement.

Is there a difference in performance between these types? Is this restricted to
long ints, or is there a general difference between all signed/non-signed C
types? Could this be something compiler or processor specific? I am using GCC on
the x86 platform (intel core i5).

The most important differences between unsigned and signed types are not
in their performance, but their behavior.
I'm not familiar with the exercise you're referring to, I only have a
copy of the first edition of K&R, which might not even have that
exercise (I didn't find it in a quick glance through the book).

The easiest way to determine the limits of the C types is to use the
macros from <limits.h>, but I presume that would defeat the point of the
exercise. There as safe and quite trivial methods of computing the range
of an unsigned type, but most of the ways I can think of for computing
the range of a signed type are subject to serious portability issues.
What do you expect the following function to do?

#include <limits.h>

long next_after_last(void)
{
return LONG_MAX + 1L;
}

Your answer to that question is likely to be closely related to the
reason your program is stuck.
 
T

Thomas Scrace

Oh!

I get it now. It is cycling around. It didn't happen with the others because
there was either a larger type to handle the overflow, or it was unsigned, and
therefore had nothing to cycle around to.

Thank you.
 
T

Thomas Scrace

There is some sort of comparison operator in there, one would assume. If
not, how did your code know it went through the entire range?

Yes, sorry. I do use >/< operators.

The code is as follows:

signed long slmax()
{
signed long s;
signed long temp;
for (s = 0, temp = -1; s > temp; ++s, ++temp) {
;
}
return temp;
}

It's the same for all the other types, the only difference is the types.

As you can see (and as I now see) in the case of an signed long it will cycle
around and around infinitely. For the unsigned long this was of course not a
problem. For signed shorts and signed ints it was not a problem because I could
use a larger type (long) for the temp variable.

I did not realise that signed types behaved this way.

Thomas Scrace <[email protected]>
 
B

Ben Bacarisse

Thomas Scrace said:
Yes, sorry. I do use >/< operators.

The code is as follows:

signed long slmax()
{
signed long s;
signed long temp;
for (s = 0, temp = -1; s > temp; ++s, ++temp) {
;
}
return temp;
}

It's the same for all the other types, the only difference is the types.

As you can see (and as I now see) in the case of an signed long it
will cycle around and around infinitely.

It's not obvious to me. I'd expect this loop to terminate on most
current C implementations.

Integer overflow is undefined behaviour so, in theory, anything can
happen when s reaches LONG_MAX. In fact, the compiler is permitted to
work out that this is inevitable and may therefore replace your code
with anything that it pleases. Of course they won't. What will happen
in a very large number of cases is that s will wrap from LONG_MAX to
LONG_MIN and the loop will end.

You may be seeing what I am seeing. On my machine long is 64 bits and I
calculate that, at the speed my machine can run this loop, it won't end
for about 340 years.
For the unsigned long this
was of course not a problem. For signed shorts and signed ints it was
not a problem because I could use a larger type (long) for the temp
variable.

I did not realise that signed types behaved this way.

I am not 100% sure that what you've deduced about your code is true. I
am pretty sure that you've missed that fact that this code is undefined
by the rules of the language.
 
M

Malcolm McLean

Yes, sorry. I do use >/< operators.

The code is as follows:

signed long slmax()
{
         signed long s;
         signed long temp;
         for (s = 0, temp = -1; s > temp; ++s, ++temp) {
                 ;
         }
         return temp;

}

It's the same for all the other types, the only difference is the types.

As you can see (and as I now see) in the case of an signed long it will cycle
around and around infinitely. For the unsigned long this was of course not a
problem. For signed shorts and signed ints it was not a problem because Icould
use a larger type (long) for the temp variable.

I did not realise that signed types behaved this way.
Signed types have undefined behaviour on overflow. Normally they just
wrap like unsigned types from maximium to minimum. But other
behaviours are possible.
 
T

Thomas Scrace

Signed types have undefined behaviour on overflow. Normally they just
wrap like unsigned types from maximium to minimum. But other
behaviours are possible.

Well, it seems as if you and Ben might be right, because I just amended the code
to take advance of the wrapping behaviour, and the loop still is not
terminating.

It is rather strange, because when I do:

LONG_MAX + 1L

I get LONG_MIN. But a loop that increments a signed long
from 0 until it becomes negative does not appear to end. I can't really understand this, because I can
get to ULONG_MAX in a matter of a few seconds in the same fashion.
 
T

Thomas Scrace

Well, I just added a print statement to the loop so I could see what was
happening. It is definitely not looping around, it is just going really slowly.
I did a very rough timing, and it took about a minute to count to 4 million. By
comparison, with an unsigned long it took just a few seconds to max out at
9223372036854775807. So, the wrapping does not seem to be the issue. I am at a
loss as to how to explain why the speed is so dramatically different.
 
T

Thomas Scrace

Looking at this code, the problem is not with the signed types, but the
unsigned.

When you make the s and temp unsigned, then in the first iteration:
s = 0
temp = ULONG_MAX (because that's what you get when you assign -1 to an
unsigned long)
So, s > temp is false, and so you exit immediately.

For signed types, this doesn't happen; you'll continue looping until s goes
beyond LONG_MAX, and the increment invokes undefined behavior. However, I
expect that you're not actually getting this far. Are longs 64 bits on this
platform? If it is, then this will take a *long* time (9223372036854775808
iterations; even if each iteration takes one picosecond (!), we're talking
about over 100 days).

Right. This makes sense. Yes, we are talking 64 bits.

I was not recognising the problem with the unsigned variables, because they do
in fact produce the desired result, just not in the way I intended!

Thanks a lot for your help.
 
K

Keith Thompson

Thomas Scrace said:
Sorry, I meant 18446744073709551615.

(That's 2**64-1.)

That's implausible; there must be something else going on.

If your computer can increment a 64-bit long in 1 nanosecond
(1 GHz), it would take it over 500 years to iterate from 0
to 18446744073709551615. You can tweak the numbers slightly
(maybe your computer is faster than that, maybe it can do multiple
increments per clock cycle, etc.), but not enough to reduce the
time to a few seconds.

You said you added a print statement to the loop, and it took about
a minute to count to 4 million. (BTW, this would be a lot easier if
you had kept that context in your followup.) The print statement is
going to take orders of magnitude longer than a simple increment;
a minute to generate 4 million lines of output is plausible.
The overhead of formatting the output string is going to be
substantial, and even that is likely to be swamped by the time it
takes to physically generate the output.

My best guess is that you're actually iterating over a 32-bit range.
That takes about 6 seconds on my system (with no ouput in the loop).
(A sufficiently clever compiler might also optimize away the loop,
but then it would take no perceptible time, not "just a few seconds".)

Post the code (with no print stastements in the loop) that
"took just a few seconds". Please post the complete compilable
and runnable program. Before the loop starts, have it print the
relevent values from your <limits.h>, e.g.:

#include <limits.h>
....
printf("INT_MAX = %d\n", INT_MAX);
printf("UINT_MAX = %u\n", UINT_MAX);
printf("LONG_MAX = %ld\n", LONG_MAX);
printf("ULONG_MAX = %lu\n", ULONG_MAX);

If this doesn't solve the mystery, we might consider looking at the
generated assembly code, but we're not there yet.
 
T

Thomas Scrace

(That's 2**64-1.)

That's implausible; there must be something else going on.

If your computer can increment a 64-bit long in 1 nanosecond
(1 GHz), it would take it over 500 years to iterate from 0
to 18446744073709551615. You can tweak the numbers slightly
(maybe your computer is faster than that, maybe it can do multiple
increments per clock cycle, etc.), but not enough to reduce the
time to a few seconds.

You said you added a print statement to the loop, and it took about
a minute to count to 4 million. (BTW, this would be a lot easier if
you had kept that context in your followup.) The print statement is
going to take orders of magnitude longer than a simple increment;
a minute to generate 4 million lines of output is plausible.
The overhead of formatting the output string is going to be
substantial, and even that is likely to be swamped by the time it
takes to physically generate the output.

My best guess is that you're actually iterating over a 32-bit range.
That takes about 6 seconds on my system (with no ouput in the loop).
(A sufficiently clever compiler might also optimize away the loop,
but then it would take no perceptible time, not "just a few seconds".)

Hi Keith.

I posted the relevant function in a previous post, but I will reproduce it here:
signed long slmax()
{
signed long s;
signed long temp;
for (s = 0, temp = -1; s > temp; ++s, ++temp) {
;
}
return temp;
}

The function is the same for the unsigned longs, except with the types of the
two counter variables changed to unsigned. Scott Fluhrer pointed out that the
explanation for the supernaturally fast enumeration of the 64bit longs was in
the

temp = -1

assignment. Because temp is an unsigned variable in the unsigned functions this
actually ended up taking the value of ULONG_MAX, and the loop immediately
terminated. The reason I did not realise the error was that I was looking for it
to return ULONG_MAX; I just thought it was doing it in a different fashion.

So, mystery solved! It's amazing how these apparently simple K&R exercises can
lead to learning a lot more about the language than you initially expect.

Thanks,
Tom
 
K

Keith Thompson

Thomas Scrace said:
I posted the relevant function in a previous post, but I will reproduce it here:


The function is the same for the unsigned longs, except with the types of the
two counter variables changed to unsigned. Scott Fluhrer pointed out that the
explanation for the supernaturally fast enumeration of the 64bit longs was in
the

temp = -1

assignment. Because temp is an unsigned variable in the unsigned functions this
actually ended up taking the value of ULONG_MAX, and the loop immediately
terminated. The reason I did not realise the error was that I was looking for it
to return ULONG_MAX; I just thought it was doing it in a different fashion.

So, mystery solved! It's amazing how these apparently simple K&R exercises can
lead to learning a lot more about the language than you initially expect.

I'm glad you solved the mystery, but for future reference:

Yes, you posted the function, but you didn't post a complete program,
nor did you post the actual function that exhibited the problem. A
description of your actual code, even if it's accurate, isn't nearly as
useful as an exact copy (as in copy-and-paste) of your code. We can't
guess what details you've left out, either accidentally or because you
assumed they were unimportant.

Here's the kind of thing I was asking for:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <limits.h>

unsigned long slmax(void)
{
unsigned long s;
unsigned long temp;
for (s = 0, temp = -1; s > temp; ++s, ++temp) {
;
}
return temp;
}


int main(void)
{
unsigned long result;

printf("ULONG_MAX = %lu\n", ULONG_MAX);
printf("Calling slmax()\n");
result = slmax();
printf("After slmax()\n");
return 0;
}

Output:
ULONG_MAX = 4294967295
Calling slmax()
After slmax()

And you told us this took "a few seconds" to run. On my system, the
time it takes to run is literally too short to measure (well, to measure
conveniently). That's a *huge* difference, and it led me to a
completely icorrect conclusion.

Recommended reading:
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>.

Again, I'm glad you solved the problem, but I hope this advice will be
useful next time you want to ask a question here. And please don't
think I'm picking on you (I'm not) or beating a dead horse (well, I
probably am).
 
P

Peter Nilsson

What are the functions?


Not on modern cpus.

<snip>

James Kuyper said:
The most important differences between unsigned and signed
types are not in their performance, but their behavior. ...

The easiest way to determine the limits of the C types is to
use the macros from <limits.h>, but I presume that would defeat
the point of the exercise.

Indeed, and under C90, not all integer types have known limit
macros, e.g. ptrdiff_t.
There [are] safe and quite trivial methods of computing the
range of an unsigned type, but most of the ways I can think
of for computing the range of a signed type are subject to
serious portability issues.

It's impossible in C99, but the maximum is certainly achievable
in C90.

ptrdiff_t max, new;
for (max = 32767; (new = 2ul * max + 1) > max; )
max = new;
printf("%ld\n", (long) max);

Whether the minimum is possible depends on whether you believe
XXX_MIN is limited to -XXX_MAX or -XXX_MAX-1.
 
M

Michael Press

James Kuyper said:
The most important differences between unsigned and signed types are not
in their performance, but their behavior.
I'm not familiar with the exercise you're referring to, I only have a
copy of the first edition of K&R, which might not even have that
exercise (I didn't find it in a quick glance through the book).

The easiest way to determine the limits of the C types is to use the
macros from <limits.h>, but I presume that would defeat the point of the
exercise. There as safe and quite trivial methods of computing the range
of an unsigned type, but most of the ways I can think of for computing
the range of a signed type are subject to serious portability issues.

Baby-step Giant-step method.

$ cat try.c
#include <stdio.h>

int
main(void)
{
int x;
int y;
int step;

x = step = 1;
for (; step != 0;)
{
if ((y = x + step) > x)
{
x = y;
if ((y = 2 * step) > step)
step = y;
}
else
{
step /= 2;
}
}
printf("Maximum int = %d = %#x.\n", x, x);
return 0;
}
$ cc try.c
$ ./a.out
Maximum int = 2147483647 = 0x7fffffff.
 
J

James Kuyper

Baby-step Giant-step method.

$ cat try.c
#include <stdio.h>

int
main(void)
{
int x;
int y;
int step;

x = step = 1;
for (; step != 0;)
{
if ((y = x + step) > x)
{
x = y;
if ((y = 2 * step) > step)
step = y;
}
else
{
step /= 2;
}
}
printf("Maximum int = %d = %#x.\n", x, x);
return 0;
}

That's one example of precisely what I was talking about. As soon as x >
INT_MAX - step, the expression x+step has undefined behavior; as soon as
step > INT_MAX/2, the expression 2*step has undefined behavior. The
above code seems to rely upon the unportable assumption that the actual
behavior in each of those cases will be to produce a result that is
negative. That's very common behavior, but it's not guaranteed by the
standard. That's what I meant by "serious portability issues".
 
T

Thomas Scrace

James Kuyper said:
The most important differences between unsigned and signed
types are not in their performance, but their behavior. ...

The easiest way to determine the limits of the C types is to
use the macros from <limits.h>, but I presume that would defeat
the point of the exercise.

Indeed, and under C90, not all integer types have known limit
macros, e.g. ptrdiff_t.
There [are] safe and quite trivial methods of computing the
range of an unsigned type, but most of the ways I can think
of for computing the range of a signed type are subject to
serious portability issues.

It's impossible in C99, but the maximum is certainly achievable
in C90.

ptrdiff_t max, new;
for (max = 32767; (new = 2ul * max + 1) > max; )
max = new;
printf("%ld\n", (long) max);

Whether the minimum is possible depends on whether you believe
XXX_MIN is limited to -XXX_MAX or -XXX_MAX-1.

I thought you all might like to see what I ended up with for this. I have to
admit that this code does take advantage of formally undefined behaviour;
notably that signed types will loop around to their maximum when the minimum is
exceeded, and vice versa. However, this does seem to be quite common behaviour,
and - more importantly - I cannot find another way to do it.

I also have not included functions to compute the range of floating point types
(although I do print these values from the <floats.>h macros) since I have not
yet found a satisfactory method for this.

Also, I realise that I could probably make this a bit tidier and less
function-happy, but I wanted to restrict myself to language features that had
been covered by K&R up to the point where this exercise appears.

So, here it is (warning! large code dump ahead):

<CODE>

/*
* K&R Exercise 2-1
*
* Determine the ranges of char, short, int,
* and long variables, both signed and
* unsigned, by printing appropriate values
* from standard headers and by direct
* computation. Harder if you compute them:
* determine the ranges of the various
* floating point types.
*
* Author: Thomas Scrace <[email protected]>
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <float.h>

signed char scmin();
signed short ssmin();
signed int simin();
signed long slmin();

main()
{
unsigned char cmn, cmx;
signed char scmn, scmx;
unsigned short smx;
short ssmn;
unsigned int imx;
int simn;
unsigned long lmx;
long slmn;

cmx = -1;
cmn = cmx + 1;
scmn = scmin();
scmx = scmn - 1;
smx = -1;
ssmn = ssmin();
imx = -1;
simn = simin();
lmx = -1;
slmn = slmin();

printf("\n*****************INTEGRAL TYPES********************\n\n");

printf("-----------values from standard headers-----------\n\n");

printf("%21d : char : %d\n", 0, UCHAR_MAX);
printf("%21d : signed char: %d\n", CHAR_MIN, CHAR_MAX);
printf("%21d : short : %d\n", 0, USHRT_MAX);
printf("%21d :signed short: %d\n", SHRT_MIN, SHRT_MAX);
printf("%21d : int : %u\n", 0, UINT_MAX);
printf("%21d : signed int : %d\n", INT_MIN, INT_MAX);
printf("%21d : long : %lu\n", 0, ULONG_MAX);
printf("%21ld :signed long : %ld\n", LONG_MIN, LONG_MAX);

printf("\n-----------values by direct computation-----------\n\n");

printf("%21d : char : %d\n", cmn, cmx);
printf("%21d : signed char: %d\n", scmn, scmx);
printf("%21hd : short : %d\n", smx + 1, smx);
printf("%21d :signed short: %hd\n", ssmn, ssmn - 1);
printf("%21d : int : %u\n", imx + 1, imx);
printf("%21d : signed int : %d\n", simn, simn - 1);
printf("%21d : long : %lu\n", lmx + 1, lmx);
printf("%21ld :signed long : %ld\n", slmn, slmn - 1);

printf("\n**************FLOATING-POINT TYPES*****************\n\n");

printf("-----------values from standard headers-------------\n\n");

printf("%21.6e : float : %0.6e\n", FLT_MIN, FLT_MAX);
printf("%21.10e : double : %0.10e\n", DBL_MIN, DBL_MAX);

return 0;
}

/* scmin: return the minimum value of a signed char */
signed char scmin()
{
signed char c, tmp;

for (c = tmp = -2; c < 0; c = c * 2)
tmp = c;
return tmp;
}

/* ssmin: return the minimum value of a signed short */
signed short ssmin()
{
signed short s, tmp;

for (s = tmp = -2; s < 0; s = s * 2)
tmp = s;
return tmp;
}

/* simin: return the minimum value of a signed int */
signed int simin()
{
signed int i, tmp;

for (i = tmp = -2;i < 0; i = i * 2)
tmp = i;
return tmp;
}

/* slmin: return the minimum value of a signed long */
signed long slmin()
{
signed long l, tmp;

for (l = tmp = -2; l < 0; l = l * 2)
tmp = l;
return tmp;
}

</CODE>

The output, on my system, is as follows:

<OUTPUT>

*****************INTEGRAL TYPES********************

-----------values from standard headers-----------

0 : char : 255
-128 : signed char: 127
0 : short : 65535
-32768 :signed short: 32767
0 : int : 4294967295
-2147483648 : signed int : 2147483647
0 : long : 18446744073709551615
-9223372036854775808 :signed long : 9223372036854775807

-----------values by direct computation-----------

0 : char : 255
-128 : signed char: 127
0 : short : 65535
-32768 :signed short: 32767
0 : int : 4294967295
-2147483648 : signed int : 2147483647
0 : long : 18446744073709551615
-9223372036854775808 :signed long : 9223372036854775807

**************FLOATING-POINT TYPES*****************

-----------values from standard headers-------------

1.175494e-38 : float : 3.402823e+38
2.2250738585e-308 : double : 1.7976931349e+308

</OUTPUT>
 
B

Ben Bacarisse

[On K&R Ex 2.1: findinf the range of basic types]
I thought you all might like to see what I ended up with for this. I
have to admit that this code does take advantage of formally undefined
behaviour; notably that signed types will loop around to their maximum
when the minimum is exceeded, and vice versa. However, this does seem
to be quite common behaviour, and - more importantly - I cannot find
another way to do it.

You can get round the undefined nature integer arithmetic (at least I
think you can) but it's hard (by which I mean I can't see how) to get
round the problem of trap representations.

If a signed type has no trap representation, you can use

union {
int i;
unsigned char b[sizeof(int)];
} u;

to set all the bits of u.i to 1 by setting u.b[k] = -1 for all suitable
k. (You can't just set u.i = -1 because the implementation may not be
using 2s complement).

You then unset the sign bit. To find it, flip each bit of each u.b[k]
looking for one that makes u.i > 0. Similar techniques can be used for
the minimum.

<snip>
 
T

Thomas Scrace

I believe what you are seeing is a program bug, not a performance difference.

Well it turned out that you are correct. I have discussed this in previous
posts, but, briefly, I had a bug that caused the function to give me the
result I was looking for, but using a method I was not expecting.

The reason was that I was initiating a loop by assinging -1 to an unsigned type.
This meant that the variable immediately had the max value, and the loop exited
without looping through all the possible values of the unsigned type (which is
what I thought it was doing).

From my perspective this meant that the program was looping through a large
number of values extremely quickly in comparison with the signed version of the
function, which was extremely slow (it actually *was* looping through all the
values).

I have posted the full version of the program I ended up with in a previous
message if you are interested.

Thanks for the information - it was very interesting.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
473,744
Messages
2,569,482
Members
44,901
Latest member
Noble71S45

Latest Threads

Top