QA·C Help - 4490

	4490	A composite expression of 'essentially signed' type (%1s) is being converted to wider signed type, '%2s' on assignment.

Arithmetic type - Composite expressions

This message is issued whenever a composite expression of essentially signed type undergoes an assigning conversion to a wider signed integer type.

It is a common misconception among programmers that the type in which the composite expression is evaluated is influenced by the wider type. Instead, the type of the expression is determined solely from the type of its operands after any integral promotion. Therefore, an overflow may occur, which could be avoided if the operands were cast to the wider type, or rearranged so that wider operands appear first.

For example:


/*PRQA S 1-9999 ++*/
/*PRQA S 4490 --*/

void foo (int b);

int f4490 (short a)
{
  int sia = (a + a);        /* 4490 */

  foo (a + 1);              /* 4490 */

  sia = (a - 1);            /* 4490 */

  return (a * 2);           /* 4490 */
}

For the purposes of QA·C conversion messages, types are ordered according to the configured size (-s option), by default; hence for a typical 32 bit configuration, types int and long will be considered equivalent. However, when the -strictrank option is specified, types will be ordered according to their rank; consequently int will be considered narrower than long.

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