In computing, signedness is a property of data types representing numbers in computer programs.
A numeric variable is signed if it can represent both positive and negative numbers, and unsigned if it can only represent non-negative numbers (zero or positive numbers).
As signed numbers can represent negative numbers, they lose a range of positive numbers that can only be represented with unsigned numbers of the same size (in bits) because roughly half the possible values are non-positive values. Unsigned variables can dedicate all the possible values to the positive number range.
For example, a Two's complement signed 16-bit integer can hold the values −32768 to 32767 inclusively, while an unsigned 16 bit integer can hold the values 0 to 65535. For this sign representation method, the leftmost bit (most significant bit) denotes whether the value is positive or negative (0 for positive, 1 for negative).
