Is using unsigned integer overflow good practice?

Question

I was reading the C Standard the other day, and noticed that unlike signed integer overflow (which is undefined), unsigned integer overflow is well defined. I\'ve seen it us

Answer 1

Just because you know the minutiae of the standard doesn't mean the person maintaining your code does. That person may have to waste time worrying about this while debugging later, or have to go look up the standard to verify this behavior later.

Sure, we expect proficiency with the reasonable features of a language in a working programmer -- and different companies / groups have a different expectation about where that reasonable proficiency is. But for most groups this seems to be a bit much to expect the next person to know off the top of his/her head and not have to think about it.

If that weren't enough, you're more likely to run into compiler bugs when you're working around the edges of the standard. Or worse, the person porting this code to a new platform may run into them.

In short, I vote don't do it!