Why NSInteger instead of NSUInteger in “numberOfSectionInTableView:”?

Question

The UITableView data source method numberOfSectionsInTableView: has a return type of NSInteger. However, a UITableView cannot have a negative amount of rows; it has 0 or greater rows, so why is the return type of NSInteger? Doesn't that allow for crashes relating to a negative integer being returned?

Answer 1

You can't do the check (if var < 0) return; with an unsigned integer. That is the standard reason for preferring one. Really the only reason to use an unsigned integer is if you need the extra room for larger digits, and you can guarantee the input will never try to be less than zero.