User Guide

128 Chapter 5: ActionScript Core Language Elements

Floating-point numbers are converted to integers by discarding any digits after the decimal point.

Positive integers are converted to an unsigned hex value with a maximum value of 4294967295 or

0xFFFFFFFF; values larger than the maximum have their most significant digits discarded when

they are converted so the value is still 32-bit. Negative numbers are converted to an unsigned hex

value via the two’s complement notation, with the minimum being -2147483648 or

0x800000000; numbers less than the minimum are converted to two’s complement with greater

precision and also have the most significant digits discarded.

For more information, see “Operator precedence and associativity” on page 32.

Example

The following example converts -1 to a 32-bit integer and shifts it 1 bit to the right:

var x:Number = -1 >>> 1;

trace(x); // output: 2147483647

This is because -1 decimal is 11111111111111111111111111111111 binary (thirty-two 1’s),

and when you shift right (unsigned) by 1 bit, the least significant (rightmost) bit is discarded, and

the most significant (leftmost) bit is filled with a 0. The result is

01111111111111111111111111111111 binary, which represents the 32-bit integer

2147483647.