Integer (computer science)

In computer science, an integer is a datum of integral data type, a data type that represents some range of mathematical integers.^[1] Integral data types may be of different sizes and may or may not be allowed to contain negative values. Integers are commonly represented in a computer as a group of binary digits (bits). The size of the grouping varies so the set of integer sizes available varies between different types of computers. Computer hardware nearly always provides a way to represent a processor register or memory address as an integer.