---
id: gktb
title: Two's complement
tags: []
created: Tuesday, March 19, 2024
---

# Two's complement

## Summary

- _Two's complement_ is a method for representing signed numbers (negative
  integers) in binary.

- The two's complement of a given binary integer is its negative equivalent.

## Detail

### Procedural steps

Two's complement divides the available word length (see
[[Binary_encoding|binary encoding]]) into two subsets: one for negative integrs
and one for positive integers.

Take the binary encoding of decimal five (`0101`). Its complement is `1011`.

The procedure for deriving the complement is as follows.

To derive the complement of an unsigned number:

1. Take the unsigned number and invert its digits: `0` becomes `1`, `1` becomes
   `0`
2. Add one

![](/img/unsigned-to-signed.png)

To derive the unsigned equivalent of a signed number you invert the process but
still make the smallest digit `1`:

![](/img/signed-to-unsigned.png)

### Formal expression

$$
    2^n - x
$$

- where $x$ is the negative integer in binary that we wish to derive
- where $n$ is the word length of the binary system in bits.

Applied to the earlier example we have $2^4 -5$ which is:

$$
    16 - 5 = 11
$$

When we convert the decimal `11` to binary we get `1011` which is identical to
the signed version of the unsigned integer.

We can confirm the correctness of the derviation by summing the signed and
unsigned binary values. If this results in zeros (ignoring the overflow bit),
the derivation is correct as the two values effectively cancel each other out:

$$

  1011 + 0101 = 0000
$$

## Applications

## Related notes

[[Signed_and_unsigned_numbers|signed_and_unsigned_numbers]]