I have seen this before as a reserved word, mainly in bnet bots...

example
[code]u_long u_flags[/code]

What is u_long exactly defining the variable u_flags as?

[quote author=MoNksBaNe_Agahnim link=board=30;threadid=6007;start=0#msg51862 date=1080329744]
I have seen this before as a reserved word, mainly in bnet bots...

example
[code]u_long u_flags[/code]

What is u_long exactly defining the variable u_flags as?
[/quote]

probably
[code]
typedef unsigned long u_long;
[/code]

I would assume it's unsigned long.

what exactly does unsigned/signed mean?

[quote author=MoNksBaNe_Agahnim link=board=30;threadid=6007;start=0#msg52070 date=1080411728]
what exactly does unsigned/signed mean?
[/quote]

An unsigned 32-bit integer uses 32 bits to represent the amount. It can take any integer value from 0 to 4294967295.

A signed 32-bit integer uses 31 bits to represent the amount and 1 bit to represent the sign. It can take any integer value from -2147483648 to 2147483647.


Example; 3-bit integer:

The left-most bit is the sign in a signed integer, so all values where that bit is 1 are negative.

[code]
binary unsigned signed
000 0 0
001 1 1
010 2 2
011 3 3
100 4 -4
101 5 -3
110 6 -2
111 7 -1
[/code]

Signed integers are represented by two's complement. That is the inversion of the bits + 1.

For example
[code]unsigned int a = 96;
printf("%d %d\n", a, ~a + 1);[/code]
Outputs: 96 -96

what does the '~' do?

~ is bitwise NOT - it complements each bit in the parameter. (0 becomes 1, 1 becomes 0.)