21. Computing the quotient of the arguments and result overflow

Let’s start with two simple computations, as follows:

-4/-1 = 4, 4/-1 = -4

This is a very simple use case that works as expected. Now, let’s keep the divisor as -1, and let’s change the dividend to Integer.MIN_VALUE (-2,147,483,648):

int x = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
int quotient = x/-1; // -2,147,483,648

This time, the result is not correct. The int domain was overflowed because of |Integer.MIN_VALUE| > |Integer.MAX_VALUE|. It should be the positive 2,147,483,648, which doesn’t fit in the int domain. However, changing the x type from int to long will solve the problem:

long x = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
long quotient = x/-1; // 2,147,483,648

But the problem will reappear if, instead of Integer.MIN_VALUE, there is Long.MIN_VALUE:

long y = Long.MIN_VALUE; // -9,223,372,036,854,775,808
long quotient = y/-1;    // -9,223,372,036,854,775,808

Starting with JDK 18, the Math...