Why is C++ numeric_limits::max() == 0?

Question

Here\'s a bit of code that might seem like it would work:

#include 
#include 

enum test { A = 1 };

int main()
{
    int max =          


        

Answer 1

From the C++11 draft:

In 18.3.2.1, about numeric_limits:

Non-arithmetic standard types, such as complex (26.4.2), shall not have specializations.

And an enum is not an arithmetic standard type.

Then, in the non-specialized template:

template class numeric_limits {
    public:
    [...]
    static constexpr bool is_specialized = false;
    static constexpr T max() noexcept { return T(); }
};

That is, the non-specialized max() function returns the default initialized value for that type, that is 0.