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Software Engineering

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    You might be getting confused with string overruns. Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 12:56
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    Homework: Modify a simple CPU so that it does spill. You'll see that the logic gets far more complex, all for a "feature" that would guarantee security holes everywhere without being useful in the first place. Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 15:05
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    If you need really huge numbers, it is possible to have a number representation that increases how much memory it uses to fit large numbers. The processor itself can't do this, and it's not a feature of the C language, but a library can implement it - a common C library is the GNU Multiple Precision arithmetic library. The library has to manage memory to store the numbers which has a performance cost on top of the arithmetic. A lot of languages have this kind of thing built in (which doesn't avoid the costs). Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 15:10
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    write a simple test, I'm not a C programmer but something along the lines of int c = INT.MAXINT; c+=1; and see what happened to c. Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 20:41
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    @JonH: The problem is that overflow in Undefined Behavior. A C compiler may spot that code, and deduce that it's unreachable code because it unconditionally overflows. Since unreachable code doesn't matter, it can be eliminated. End result: no code left. Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 7:57