Math operation between int and uint

Question

How is it possible to either convert uint to int or do simple math comparison operations?

Something like:

uint a;
uint b;
int c;


if (a - b < c) doSomething();

What I'm trying to do is to see if the subtraction of two integers are negative or not. however one of those values comes from msg.value so it should be uint, and I'm not sure if we do uint - uint the result could smaller than 0 to check it on if condition.

Answer 1

To convert one type to another, use uint(x) or int(x). The rules are basically the same as in C, where the first bit of the uint becomes the sign.

For example:

if (int(a - b) < c) doSomething();

is likely what you want, as the numbers will be subtracted, then converted.

The type(x) syntax is used for all kinds of casting, such as truncating a number (uint8(someUint)), converting to and from odd types (bytes32(someUint)), or even casting a given address to a specific contract type (someContract(someAddress)).

Answer 2

You can cast from uint to int by just doing int(a-b) but be careful. The int type in solidity uses the two's complement system, so if you accidental cast a very large uint to an int, or a negative int to a uint, you may get unexpected results.

The values where this would happen are extremely large (numbers greater than 2^255, or about 10^77), so you don't usually need to worry, but remember that uint(5-8) is 115792089237316195423570985008687907853269984665640564039457584007913129639933

Answer 3

When converting var from int to uint:

if(var < 0) {
    uint(-var);
}
else {
    uint(var);
}

When converting var from uint to int:

if(var >= uint(-1) {
    //can't cast - out of range of int max
}
else {
    int(var);
}