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skydhash • today at 12:35 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

> But also, what you describe would be incorrect, since two <MAX values can add to a value that is >MAX, and overflow

I was maybe unclear. I meant, if you know a sum can introduce overflow (because you have a check right after), why not check the inputs before doing the sum, instead of checking the sum?

Replies

mbrock • today at 12:53 PM

You can do something like

       (y > 0 && x > INT_MAX - y) 
    || (y < 0 && x < INT_MIN - y)
and hope the optimizer turns it back into just checking the result. Or you use -fwrapv to concretize the ISO ambiguity and specify the natural two's complement semantics, checking overflow with the classic Hacker's Delight formula;

    ((x ^ s) & (y ^ s)) < 0
But the best way is to use the intrinsic __builtin_add_overflow or, depending on compiler support, its C23 standardization via <stdckdint.h> and ckd_add etc.