On Wednesday, October 8, 2025, Yexuan Xiao wrote:

> Why is it allowed to return a signed integer? C++ users are accustomed to
> the fact that the size_type of containers is an unsigned integer, so the
> size of containers should also return an unsigned integer.
>



 - - - - - - - Begin Half-baked Idea - - - - - - -


What if we could define a function (or member function) as follows:

    +|- int size(void);

The trigraph, +|- , at the beginning indicates that the function has two
forms: one returning signed, and one returning unsigned.

So then when you want to invoke the function, you get the unsigned version
as follows:

    auto x = size();

and you get the signed version as follows:

    auto x = +|- size();

Similarly you would ake the address of the function as follows:

    int (*p1)(void) = &size;
    unsigned (*p2)(void) = & +|- size;

I would add the stipulation that both of these function pointers can
compare equal (because they'll most likely have the same machine code
anyway since Two's Complement is now mandatory).