# integer constant

< c‎ | language

Allows values of integer type to be used in expressions directly.

## Contents

### Syntax

An integer constant is a non-lvalue expression of the form

 decimal-constant integer-suffix(optional) (1) octal-constant integer-suffix(optional) (2) hex-constant integer-suffix(optional) (3)

where

• decimal-constant is a non-zero decimal digit (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), followed by zero or more decimal digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
• octal-constant is the digit zero (0) followed by zero or more octal digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
• hex-constant is the character sequence 0x or the character sequence 0X followed by one or more hexadecimal digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, A, b, B, c, C, d, D, e, E, f, F)
• integer-suffix, if provided, may contain one or both of the following (if both are provided, they may appear in any order:
• unsigned-suffix (the character u or the character U)
• long-suffix (the character l or the character L) or the long-long-suffix (the character sequence ll or the character sequence LL) (since C99)

### Explanation

1) Decimal integer constant (base 10, the first digit is the most significant).
2) Octal integer constant (base 8, the first digit is the most significant).
3) Hexadecimal integer constant (base 16, the first digit is the most significant, the letters 'a' through 'f' represent the decimal values 10 through 15).

The following variables are initialized to the same value:

int d = 42;
int o = 052;
int x = 0x2a;
int X = 0X2A;

### The type of the integer constant

The type of the integer constant is the first type in which the value can fit, from the list of types which depends on which numeric base and which integer-suffix was used.

Types allowed for integer constants
suffix decimal bases hexadecimal or octal bases
no suffix int

long int
unsigned long int (until C99)
long long int (since C99)

int

unsigned int
long int
unsigned long int
long long int(since C99)
unsigned long long int(since C99)

u or U unsigned int

unsigned long int
unsigned long long int(since C99)

unsigned int

unsigned long int
unsigned long long int(since C99)

l or L long int

unsigned long int(until C99)
long long int(since C99)

long int

unsigned long int
long long int(since C99)
unsigned long long int(since C99)

both l/L and u/U unsigned long int

unsigned long long int(since C99)

unsigned long int

unsigned long long int(since C99)

ll or LL long long int(since C99) long long int(since C99)

unsigned long long int(since C99)

both ll/LL and u/U unsigned long long int(since C99) unsigned long long int(since C99)

If the value of the integer constant is too big to fit in any of the types allowed by suffix/base combination and the compiler supports extended integer types (such as __int128), the constant may be given the extended integer type; otherwise, the program is ill-formed.

### Notes

Letters in the integer constants are case-insensitive: 0xDeAdBaBeU and 0XdeadBABEu represent the same number (one exception is the long-long-suffix, which is either ll or LL, never lL or Ll)

There are no negative integer constants. Expressions such as -1 apply the unary minus operator to the value represented by the constant, which may involve implicit type conversions.

When used in a controlling expression of #if or #elif, all signed integer constants act as if they have type intmax_t and all unsigned integer constants act as if they have type uintmax_t.

Integer constants may be used in integer constant expressions.

Due to maximal munch, hexadecimal integer constants ending in e and E, when followed by the operators + or -, must be separated from the operator with whitespace or parentheses in the source:

int x = 0xE+2;   // error
int y = 0xa+2;   // OK
int z = 0xE +2;  // OK
int q = (0xE)+2; // OK

Otherwise, a single invalid preprocessing number token is formed, which causes further analysis to fail.

### Example

#include <stdio.h>
#include <inttypes.h>
int main(void)
{
printf("123 = %d\n", 123);
printf("0123 = %d\n", 0123);
printf("0x123 = %d\n", 0x123);
printf("12345678901234567890ull = %llu\n", 12345678901234567890ull);
// the type is a 64-bit type (unsigned long long or possibly unsigned long)
// even without a long suffix
printf("12345678901234567890u = %"PRIu64"\n", 12345678901234567890u );

//  printf("%lld\n", -9223372036854775808); // ERROR
// the value 9223372036854775808 cannot fit in signed long long, which is the
// biggest type allowed for unsuffixed decimal integer constant

printf("%llu\n", -9223372036854775808ull );
// unary minus applied to unsigned value subtracts it from 2^64,
// this gives unsigned 9223372036854775808

printf("%lld\n", -9223372036854775807ull - 1);
// correct way to form signed value -9223372036854775808
}

Output:

123 = 123
0123 = 83
0x123 = 291
12345678901234567890ull = 12345678901234567890
12345678901234567890u = 12345678901234567890
9223372036854775808
-9223372036854775808

### References

• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):
• 6.4.4.1 Integer constants (p: 62-64)
• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):
• 6.4.4.1 Integer constants (p: 54-56)
• C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):
• 3.1.3.2 Integer constants