Should I use uint in C# for values that can't be negative?
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by Johannes Rössel
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Published on 2010-01-06T13:17:12Z
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2010/06/03
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I have just tried implementing a class where numerous length/count properties, etc. are uint
instead of int
. However, while doing so I noticed that it's actually painful to do so, like as if no one actually wants to do that.
Nearly everything that hands out an integral type returns an int
, therefore requiring casts in several points. I wanted to construct a StringBuffer
with its buffer length defaulted to one of the fields in that class. Requires a cast too.
So I wondered whether I should just revert to int
here. I'm certainly not using the entire range anyway. I just thought since what I'm dealing with there simply can't be negative (if it was, it'd be an error) it'd be a nice idea to actually use uint
.
P.S.: I saw this question and this at least explains why the framework itself always uses int
but even in own code it's actually cumbersome to stick to uint
which makes me think it apparently isn't really wanted.
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