Java Glossary : overflow

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overflow: Overflow occurs when the result of an integer multiply, add or subtract cannot fit in 32 bits. Java just quietly drops the high order bits. There is no exception. If you need to detect overflow, you would use long operands and examine the high order 32 bits of the result. If there was no overlow, they would be all 0 or all 1. To detect overflow from two longs would require testing the range of the operands before the operation and/or testing the sign of the result. Why does Java ignore overflow? Most computer hardware has no ability to automatically generate an interrupt on overflow. Java would have to explicitly test for it on every add, subtract and multiply, greatly slowing down production. Further ex-C programmers are very used to this cavalier ignoring of overflow, and commonly write code presuming that high order bits will be quietly dropped.

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