Java 6 Illuminated: An Active Learning Approach, 2nd Edition

D

APPENDIX

Representing Negative Integers

The industry standard method for representing negative integers is called

two’s complement. Here is how it works:

For an integer represented using 16 bits, the leftmost bit is reserved for the

sign bit. If the sign bit is 0, then the integer is positive; if the sign bit is 1,

then the integer is negative.

For example, let’s consider two numbers, one positive and one negative.

0000 0101 0111 1001 is a positive integer, which we call a.

1111 1111 1101 1010 is a negative integer, which we will call b.

Using the methodology presented in Chapter 1 for converting a binary

number to a decimal number, we can convert the ...