U32 ? I32

[ouadji]

Hello,

Why "LV" uses "I32" instead of "U32" ... whereas the result is never negative?

for example:
- the output "offset past number" of the function "Decimal String To Number"
- the loop iteration terminal of a While Loop or a For Loop ...
- the output "size" of the array size function

What is the meaning of a 32bit signed integer for a result which will never be negative?

Why did the labview developers make this choice?

[Ranjeet_Singh]

It take universal result into consideration. You can take positive value only in U32 but in I32 both values can be stored

[ouadji]

"with a I32 both values can be stored" ... indeed, good point!

but I think this "universal choice" causes a lot of unnecessary coercion dots!

What do you think about it?

[dan_u · Accepted solution]

I guess it is to make it consistent and thus to have less coercion dots. E.g. the output of search 1D array must be I32 since it returns a negative value if there's no match. If you wire a -1 to an index array you get the default value of the array data type.

The same is true for many other places where negative (-1) has a similar meaning. So there would be lots of coercion dots if LabVIEW would use U32 where a value can be only positive (like array size) but I32 where it can be both positive and negative.

[Ranjeet_Singh]

Universal choice i.e. for both negative and positve value. Some function generates + result and some - result. Hence we need some indicator which take both the values. So I32 is best