Exception Increment Intermediate Language OverflowException short

Checked, unchecked

Checked in C# adds exceptions on number overflows. When a number overflows, its value becomes invalid. Normally, this causes no exception to be thrown.

Inside a checked context, though, an exception is thrown. With checked, errors can be prevented by catching overflow early. This leads to higher-quality programs.

Checked example

When we execute this program, an OverflowException will be generated and it will terminate the program. If we remove the checked context, the exception will not be thrown.

Note We enable a checked context with the checked keyword. This can be activated through the compiler option "/checked."

Here The variable "num" is incremented to the value equal to one plus the int.MaxValue, which cannot fit in the memory location.

Then The runtime uses special intermediate language instructions and generates an OverflowException.

Warning The variable "num" will not contain a logically correct value in the unchecked context.

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        //
        // Use checked overflow context.
        //
        checked
        {
            // Increment up to max.
            int num = 0;
            for (int i = 0; i < int.MaxValue; i++)
            {
                num++;
            }
            // Increment up to max again (error).
            for (int i = 0; i < int.MaxValue; i++)
            {
                num++;
            }
        }
    }
}Unhandled Exception: System.OverflowException:
    Arithmetic operation resulted in an overflow.
    at Program.Main()...

Unchecked example

Numeric types cause no exceptions when they overflow. This is the default behavior. It is also specified with the unchecked keyword.

Tip This feature specifies that overflow is an acceptable result of an operation such as increment—no exception is thrown.

Detail The program uses the short type, which cannot exceed the value 32767. The program increments the short and causes overflow.

Note In a checked context, an increment when the value is 32767 will throw an exception.

But In an unchecked context, an increment will cause an overflow. The value will become invalid for most programs.

using System;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // The first short will overflow after the second short does.
        short a = 0;
        short b = 100;
        try
        {
            //
            // Keep incrementing the shorts until an exception is thrown.
            // ... This is terrible program design.
            //
            while (true)
            {
                checked
                {
                    a++;
                }
                unchecked
                {
                    b++;
                }
            }
        }
        catch
        {
            // Display the value of the shorts when overflow exception occurs.
            Console.WriteLine(a);
            Console.WriteLine(b);
        }
    }
}32767
-32669

Instructions

The execution engine includes support for the "ovf" suffix on arithmetical operations. This suffix indicates that the execution engine should check for overflow.

Note In the program shown, the "add.ovf" instruction is used instead of the simple "add" instruction.

Warning The checked context will impose a substantial performance penalty if an overflow is detected.

A discussion

If the results of a computation are critical and there is a possibility the number ranges encountered will be large, using the checked context can easily inform you of errors.

And This could prevent certain catastrophic errors related to large values becoming corrupted due to truncation.

Note, default

The checked context is more often useful than the unchecked context. This is because the unchecked context is the default when compiling C# programs.

A summary

The checked keyword affects integer manipulations. It changes the behavior of the execution engine on certain arithmetical instructions. Unchecked eliminates these checks.