In computer science, the sign bit is a bit in a signed number representation that indicates the sign of a number. Although only signed numeric data types have a sign bit, it is invariably located in the most significant bit position, so the term may be used interchangeably with "most significant bit" in some contexts.
Almost always, if the sign bit is 0, the number is non-negative (positive or zero). If the sign bit is 1 then the number is negative, although formats other than two's complement integers allow a signed zero: distinct "positive zero" and "negative zero" representations, the latter...