What is “2's Complement”?

Question

I\'m in a computer systems course and have been struggling, in part, with Two\'s Complement. I want to understand it but everything I\'ve read hasn\'t brought the p

Answer 1

2's complement is very useful for finding the value of a binary, however I thought of a much more concise way of solving such a problem(never seen anyone else publish it):

take a binary, for example: 1101 which is [assuming that space "1" is the sign] equal to -3.

using 2's complement we would do this...flip 1101 to 0010...add 0001 + 0010 ===> gives us 0011. 0011 in positive binary = 3. therefore 1101 = -3!

What I realized:

instead of all the flipping and adding, you can just do the basic method for solving for a positive binary(lets say 0101) is (2³ * 0) + (2² * 1) + (2¹ * 0) + (2⁰ * 1) = 5.

Do exactly the same concept with a negative!(with a small twist)

take 1101, for example:

for the first number instead of 2³ * 1 = 8 , do -(2³ * 1) = -8.

then continue as usual, doing -8 + (2² * 1) + (2¹ * 0) + (2⁰ * 1) = -3

Answer 2

Two's complement is one of the way of expressing a negative number and most of the controllers and processors store a negative number in 2's complement form

Answer 3

To bitwise complement a number is to flip all the bits in it. To two’s complement it, we flip all the bits and add one.

Using 2’s complement representation for signed integers, we apply the 2’s complement operation to convert a positive number to its negative equivalent and vice versa. So using nibbles for an example, 0001 (1) becomes 1111 (-1) and applying the op again, returns to 0001.

The behaviour of the operation at zero is advantageous in giving a single representation for zero without special handling of positive and negative zeroes. 0000 complements to 1111, which when 1 is added. overflows to 0000, giving us one zero, rather than a positive and a negative one.

A key advantage of this representation is that the standard addition circuits for unsigned integers produce correct results when applied to them. For example adding 1 and -1 in nibbles: 0001 + 1111, the bits overflow out of the register, leaving behind 0000.

For a gentle introduction, the wonderful Computerphile have produced a video on the subject.

Answer 4

The simplest answer:

1111 + 1 = (1)0000. So 1111 must be -1. Then -1 + 1 = 0.

It's perfect to understand these all for me.

Answer 5

Two's complement is mainly used for the following reasons:

1. To avoid multiple representations of 0
2. To avoid keeping track of carry bit (as in one's complement) in case of an overflow.
3. Carrying out simple operations like addition and subtraction becomes easy.