Although many common implementations use a two's complement representation of signed integers, the C Standard declares such use as implementation-defined and allows all of the following representations:

  • Sign and magnitude
  • Two's complement
  • One's complement

This is a specific example of MSC14-C. Do not introduce unnecessary platform dependencies.

Noncompliant Code Example

One way to check whether a number is even or odd is to examine the least significant bit, but the results will be inconsistent. Specifically, this example gives unexpected behavior on all one's complement implementations:

int value;

if (scanf("%d", &value) == 1) {
  if (value & 0x1 != 0) {
    /* Take action if value is odd */
  }
}

Compliant Solution

The same thing can be achieved compliantly using the modulo operator:

int value;

if (scanf("%d", &value) == 1) {
  if (value % 2 != 0) {
    /* Take action if value is odd */
  }
}

Compliant Solution

Using bitwise operators is safe on unsigned integers:

unsigned int value;

if (scanf("%u", &value) == 1) {
  if (value & 0x1 != 0) {
    /* Take action if value is odd */
  }
}

Risk Assessment

Incorrect assumptions about integer representation can lead to execution of unintended code branches and other unexpected behavior.

Recommendation

Severity

Likelihood

Remediation Cost

Priority

Level

INT16-C

Medium

Unlikely

High

P2

L3

Automated Detection

Tool

Version

Checker

Description

Astrée
24.04
bitop-type
Partially checked
Helix QAC

2024.4

C2940, C2945 

DF2941, DF2942, DF2943, DF2946, DF2947, DF2948


LDRA tool suite
9.7.1
50 S, 120 SPartially Implemented
Parasoft C/C++test
2023.1
CERT_C-INT16-a
Bitwise operators shall only be applied to operands of unsigned underlying type
PC-lint Plus

1.4

502, 2704, 9088

Partially supported: reports bitwise not of signed quantity, declaration of named signed single-bit bitfields, and negation of the minimum negative integer

RuleChecker

24.04

bitop-type
Partially checked



9 Comments

  1. If you check subtraction under INT32-C. Ensure that operations on signed integers do not result in overflow you can find another example of a twos' complement solution.

    1. I'd say this rule is now complete.

  2. I'm beginning to suspect this rec is a variant of
    INT14-C. Avoid performing bitwise and arithmetic operations on the same data

    However, the NCCE doesn't violate INT14-C only because nothing else is done with the variable; it is merely input and then a bitwise operation is performed. Sort of a corner case not covered by INT14-C. So this rec is still valid on its own (outside INT14-C)

    I do think this rec is unenforceable, however, because you can't infer that the programmer assumes 2s-complement whenever they perform a bitwise op.

  3. If value is -3 then this result is wrong. This should be written as (value % 2 != 0).

    1. Huh? When is value ever -3?

  4. I think Yusuke is referring to INT10-C: Never assume the result of % is nonnegative.  If value (of type int) is -3, value % 2 could be -1.

    1. Agreed, I fixed the code as as suggested.

  5. To make it more obvious that this restriction is only for signed integers, we should add another compliant solution that still uses &, but changes value to be unsigned.