What is "signedness"

n. (context computing English) The state or condition of being signed.

In computing, signedness is a property of data types representing numbers in computer programs. A numeric variable is signed if it can represent both positive and negative numbers, and unsigned if it can only represent non-negative numbers (zero or positive numbers).

As signed numbers can represent negative numbers, they lose a range of positive numbers that can only be represented with unsigned numbers of the same size (in bits) because half the possible values are non-positive values (so if an 8-bit is signed, positive unsigned values 128 to 255 are gone while -128 to 127 are present). Unsigned variables can dedicate all the possible values to the positive number range.

For example, a two's complement signed 16-bit integer can hold the values −32768 to 32767 inclusively, while an unsigned 16 bit integer can hold the values 0 to 65535. For this sign representation method, the leftmost bit ( most significant bit) denotes whether the value is positive or negative (0 for positive, 1 for negative).