Sign extension

There is no “sign extension” in C. Please stop referring to “sign extension” in C programs.

In assembly, there is such a thing as “sign extension”

Sign-extend is an assembly instruction say movsx %al %ebx to transfer the contents of a narrow register say %al to a wide register say %ebx copying the most significant bit of the narrow register all over the unoccupied bits of the wide register.

In C there is no “sign extension”. Really.

In C a short variable s contains -3 and the contents of that variable is transferred to another variable of type int like so:

int i = s; 

Variable i receives -3. That's it. That's “sign extension”.

It's an assignment and in this particular case a promotion. With other types it could have been a conversion. The target wide variable receives the value that was contained in the narrow variable. Why would this operation need a name and such an ugly name as “sign extension” at that?

The name for “sign extension” in C is “getting the value”. Variable i receives the value of s. That's it. That is all there is.