Integers help in storing numbers in contracts. Solidity provides the following two types of integer:
- Signed integers: Signed integers can hold both negative and positive values.
- Unsigned integers: Unsigned integers can hold only positive values along with zero. They can also hold negative values apart from positive and zero values.
There are multiple flavors of integers in Solidity for each of these types. Solidity provides uint8 type to represent 8 bit unsigned integer and thereon in multiples of 8 till it reaches 256. In short, there could be 32 different declarations of uint with different multiples of of 8, such as uint8, uint16, unit24, as far as uint256 bit. Similarly, there are equivalent data types for integers such as int8, int16 till int256.
Depending on requirements, an appropriately sized integer should be chosen. For example, while storing values between 0 and 255 uint8 is appropriate, and while storing values between -128 to 127 int8 is more suitable. For higher values...