Why are signed negative numbers converted to unsigned numbers?

Question

Particularly i have a large unsigned number and a large signed negative number.

Why can't I divide a large number by a negative number C++

When I try to divide the two, I get the result zero simply because something somewhere is converting my signed number to unsigned (meaning that it has to be positive). >.>;

Edit.

Just to be absolutely clear. I know that it is resolved to zero and I'm happy with that. I'm also happy with the previous reason that it is resolved to zero because a number is converted away from being a signed number to an unsigned number.

However that doesn't answer why the number is converted from a signed number to an unsigned number in the first place. There doesn't seem to be any logical reason for doing so.

Answer 1

The operands of the arithmetic operators need to have the same types. That makes the language easier to define and easier to implement, in part because there are fewer cases to handle, and in part because hardware doesn't generally support mixed-type operations, either. Formally, C++ is defined in terms of a virtual machine, but the capabilities expected of that machine are influenced by those of real-world hardware. Operations dictated by the standard but not supported by hardware (such as your hypothetical signed-unsigned division) would need to be implemented by compiler-writers in library code, and that would affect performance.

Either the signed operand needs to be converted to unsigned, or vice versa. The standard committee picked the former.