Why doesn't C have unsigned floats?

Question

I know, the question seems to be strange. Programmers sometimes think too much. Please read on...

In C I use signed and unsigned integers a

Answer 1

(As an aside, Perl 6 lets you write

subset Nonnegative::Float of Float where { $_ >= 0 };

and then you can use Nonnegative::Float just like you would any other type.)

There's no hardware support for unsigned floating point operations, so C doesn't offer it. C is mostly designed to be "portable assembly", that is, as close to the metal as you can be without being tied down to a specific platform.

[edit]

C is like assembly: what you see is exactly what you get. An implicit "I'll check that this float is nonnegative for you" goes against its design philosophy. If you really want it, you can add assert(x >= 0) or similar, but you have to do that explicitly.