I have access to a program which I'm running which SHOULD be guessing a very low number for certain things and outputting the number (probably 0 or 1). However, 0.2% of the time when it should be outputting 0 it outputs a number from 4,294,967,286 - 4,294,967,295. (Note: the latter is the max number an unsigned integer can be).
What I GUESS is happening is the function is guessing the number of the data to be less than 0 aka -1 to -9 and when it assigns that number to an unsigned int it's wrapping the number around to be the max or close to the max number.
I therefore assumed the program is written in C (I do not have access to the source code) and then tested in Visual Studio .NET 2012 C what would happen if I assign a variety of negative numbers to an unsigned integer. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to happen - it would still output the number to the console as a negative integer. I'm wondering if this is to do with MSVS 2012 trying to be smart or perhaps some other reason.
Anyway, am I correct in assuming that this is in fact what is happening and the reason why the programs outputs the max number of an unisnged int? Or are there any other valid reasons as to why this is happening?
Edit: All I want to know is if it's valid to assume that attempting to assign a negative number to an unsigned integer can result in setting the integer to the max number aka 4,294,967,295. If this is IMPOSSIBLE then okay, I'm not looking at SPECIFICS on exactly why this is happening with the program as I do not have access to the code. All I want to know is if it's possible and therefore a possible explanation as to why I am getting these results.
In C and C++ assigning -1 to an unsigned number will give you the maximum unsigned value.
This is guaranteed by the standard and all compilers I know (even VC) implement this part correctly. Probably your C example has some other problem for not showing this result (cannot say without seeing the code).