A warning – comparison between signed and unsigned integer expressions

It is usually a good idea to declare variables as unsigned or size_t if they will be compared to sizes, to avoid this issue. Whenever possible, use the exact type you will be comparing against (for example, use std::string::size_type when comparing with a std::string‘s length).

Compilers give warnings about comparing signed and unsigned types because the ranges of signed and unsigned ints are different, and when they are compared to one another, the results can be surprising. If you have to make such a comparison, you should explicitly convert one of the values to a type compatible with the other, perhaps after checking to ensure that the conversion is valid. For example:

unsigned u = GetSomeUnsignedValue();
int i = GetSomeSignedValue();

if (i >= 0)
{
    // i is nonnegative, so it is safe to cast to unsigned value
    if ((unsigned)i >= u)
        iIsGreaterThanOrEqualToU();
    else
        iIsLessThanU();
}
else
{
    iIsNegative();
}