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Merge pull request #427 from chriseth/intlit
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Warning about using integer literals in division.
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chriseth committed Mar 11, 2016
2 parents 172beae + 62d8be9 commit 60a21c6
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9 changes: 9 additions & 0 deletions docs/types.rst
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Expand Up @@ -51,6 +51,9 @@ Operators:
* Bit operators: `&`, `|`, `^` (bitwise exclusive or), `~` (bitwise negation)
* Arithmetic operators: `+`, `-`, unary `-`, unary `+`, `*`, `/`, `%` (remainder), `**` (exponentiation)

Division always truncates (it just maps to the DIV opcode of the EVM), but it does not truncate if both
operators are :ref:`literals<integer_literals>` (or literal expressions).

.. index:: address, balance, send, call, callcode

Address
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.. index:: literal, literal;integer

.. _integer_literals:

Integer Literals
-----------------

Integer Literals are arbitrary precision integers until they are used together with a non-literal. In `var x = 1 - 2;`, for example, the value of `1 - 2` is `-1`, which is assigned to `x` and thus `x` receives the type `int8` -- the smallest type that contains `-1`, although the natural types of `1` and `2` are actually `uint8`.

It is even possible to temporarily exceed the maximum of 256 bits as long as only integer literals are used for the computation: `var x = (0xffffffffffffffffffff * 0xffffffffffffffffffff) * 0;` Here, `x` will have the value `0` and thus the type `uint8`.

.. warning::
Divison on integer literals used to truncate in earlier versions, but it will actually convert into a rational number in the future, i.e. `1/2` is not equal to `0`, but to `0.5`.


.. index:: literal, literal;string, string

String Literals
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