Our website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience.
Accept
to the top
close form

Fill out the form in 2 simple steps below:

Your contact information:

Step 1
Congratulations! This is your promo code!

Desired license type:

Step 2
Team license
Enterprise license
** By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement
close form
Request our prices
New License
License Renewal
--Select currency--
USD
EUR
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
Free PVS‑Studio license for Microsoft MVP specialists
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
To get the licence for your open-source project, please fill out this form
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
I am interested to try it on the platforms:
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
check circle
Message submitted.

Your message has been sent. We will email you at


If you do not see the email in your inbox, please check if it is filtered to one of the following folders:

  • Promotion
  • Updates
  • Spam

Webinar: Evaluation - 05.12

>
>
>
V658. Value is subtracted from unsigned…
menu mobile close menu
Analyzer diagnostics
General Analysis (C++)
General Analysis (C#)
General Analysis (Java)
Micro-Optimizations (C++)
Diagnosis of 64-bit errors (Viva64, C++)
Customer specific requests (C++)
MISRA errors
AUTOSAR errors
OWASP errors (C++)
OWASP errors (C#)
Problems related to code analyzer
Additional information
toggle menu Contents

V658. Value is subtracted from unsigned variable. It can result in an overflow. In such a case, the comparison operation may behave unexpectedly.

Jan 22 2013

The analyzer has detected a potential overrun.

The following operations are executed:

  • some value is being subtracted from an unsigned variable;
  • the result is compared to a certain value (operators <, <=, >, >= are used).

If an overrun occurs during the subtraction, the check result might be different from what the programmer expects.

Consider the simplest case:

unsigned A = ...;
int B = ...;
if (A - B > 1)
  Array[A - B] = 'x';

The programmer believes that this check will protect the code against an array overrun. But this check won't help if A < B.

Let A = 3 and B = 5;

Then 0x00000003u - 0x00000005i = FFFFFFFEu

The "A - B" expression has the "unsigned int" type according to the C++ standards. It means that "A - B" will equal FFFFFFFEu. This number is higher than one. As a result, memory outside the array's boundaries will be addressed.

There are two ways to fix the code. First, we may use variables of signed types to participate in calculations:

intptr_t A = ...;
intptr_t B = ...;
if (A - B > 1)
  Array[A - B] = 'x';

Second, we can change the condition. How exactly it should be done depends on the result we want to get and the input values. If B >= 0, we just need to write the following code:

unsigned A = ...;
int B = ...;
if (A > B + 1)
  Array[A - B] = 'x';

If the code is correct, you may turn off the diagnostic message for this line using the "//-V658" comment.

This diagnostic is classified as:

You can look at examples of errors detected by the V658 diagnostic.