Integer byte encoding peculiarity

Return to: Chialisp

According to Matt Howard 20210816, there is a "peculiarity with how integers are encoded in bytes.

It's signed integers.

If you just return run '(q . 0xd7)' you get -41 because the most significant bit is set and that's telling the interpreter to read this as a negative number.

If you add some leading zeroes run '(q . 0x00d7)', it should pop out as you would expect".

Returns 215.

Original concern

Q: I still have one question: why does brun '(- (q . 0xd7) (q . 0x1))' return -42?

A: hex(-42 & 0xff) == '0xd6 I see thanks!