Cppin a Nutshell-13.8 <climits>

13.8 <climits>

The <climits> header (from the C standard <limits.h> header) defines parameters that characterize integral types in the same way <cfloat> does for the floating point types. The native C++ header, <limits>, defines the same information (and more) using templates instead of macros.

The types used in the descriptions of the _MIN and _MAX macros are meant as reminders and are not descriptive of the actual types of the macro expansions. The actual types are implementation-defined and can be any integral type that would be the result of normal integral promotions for the corresponding type—e.g., if unsigned char is promoted to int, UCHAR_MAX might have type int.

All of the macros in <climits> expand to constant expressions.

CHAR_BIT macro

Bits per character

int CHAR_BIT

Number of bits per character. The value is always at least 8.

CHAR_MAX macro

Maximum char value

char CHAR_MAX

Maximum value for the char type. (Remember that the char type is the same as either signed char or unsigned char, so CHAR_MAX has the same value as SCHAR_MAX or UCHAR_MAX.)

See Also

WCHAR_MAX in <cwchar>

CHAR_MIN macro

Minimum char value

char CHAR_MIN

Minimum value for the char type (the same value as SCHAR_MIN or 0).

See Also

WCHAR_MIN in <cwchar>

INT_MAX macro

Maximum int value

int INT_MAX

Maximum value for the int type. The value is always at least 32,767.

INT_MIN macro

Minimum int value

int INT_MIN

Minimum value for the int type. The value is always less than or equal to -32,767.

LONG_MAX macro

Maximum long value

long int LONG_MAX

Maximum value for the long int type. The value is always at least 2,147,483,647.

LONG_MIN macro

Minimum long value

long int LONG_MIN

Minimum value for the long int type. The value is always less than or equal to -2,147,483,647.

MB_LEN_MAX macro

Maximum bytes in a multibyte character

int MB_LEN_MAX

Maximum number of bytes in any multibyte character, in any locale. The value is always at least 1.

SCHAR_MAX macro

Maximum signed char value

signed char SCHAR_MAX

Maximum value for the signed char type. The value is always at least 127.

SCHAR_MIN macro

Minimum signed char value

signed char SCHAR_MIN

Minimum value for the signed char type. The value is always less than or equal to -127.

SHRT_MAX macro

Maximum short value

short SHRT_MAX

Maximum value for the short type. The value is always at least 32,767.

SHRT_MIN macro

Minimum short value

short SHRT_MIN

Minimum value for the short type. The value is always less than or equal to -32,767.

UCHAR_MAX macro

Maximum unsigned char value

unsigned char UCHAR_MAX

Maximum value for the unsigned char type. The value is always at least 255.

UINT_MAX macro

Maximum unsigned int value

unsigned int UINT_MAX

Maximum value for the unsigned int type. The value is always at least 65,535.

ULONG_MAX macro

Maximum unsigned long value

unsigned long ULONG_MAX

Maximum value for the unsigned long type. The value is always at least 4,294,967,295.

USHRT_MAX macro

Maximum unsigned short value

unsigned short USHRT_MAX

Maximum value for the unsigned short type. The value is always at least 65,535.