If a C signed integer type is stored in 22 bits, what is the smallest value it can store?

I am learning about data allocation and am a little confused.

If you are looking for the smallest or greatest value that can be stored in a certain number of bits then does it matter what the data type is?

Wouldn't the smallest or biggest number that could be stored in 22 bits would be 22 1's positive or negative? Is the first part of this question a red herring? Wouldn't the smallest value be -4194303?

Solution

Thanks everyone for the replies. I figured it out with the help of all of your info but I will explain the answer to show exactly what gaps of knowledge I had that lead to my misunderstanding.

The data type does matter in this question because for signed data types the first bit is used to represent whether or not a binary number is positive or negative. 0111 = 7 and 1111 = -7

sign int and unsigned int use the same number of bits, 32 bits. Since an unsigned int is unsigned: the first bit isn't used to represent positive or negative so it can represent a larger number with that extra bit. 1111 converted to an unsigned int is 15 whereas with the signed int it was -7 since the furthest left bit represents the sign: 1 is negative and 0 is positive.

Now to answer "If a C signed integer type is stored in 22 bits, what is the smallest value it can store?":

If you convert binary to decimal you get 1111111111111111111111 = 4194304 This decimal value -1 is the maximum value an unsigned could hold. Since our data type is signed it has to use one less bit for the number value since the first bit represents the sign. This gives us -2097152.

Thanks again, everyone.