INT8

Int8 refers to an eight-bit signed integer type used in computing. It occupies one byte and can represent values from -128 to 127. Most modern systems use two's complement encoding for signed integers, which means negative numbers are represented as bit patterns that correspond to 2^8 minus the absolute value. This encoding is standard in most hardware and language implementations, though the abstract notion of int8 is defined by the programming language.

In programming languages, int8 is provided as an exact-width type in several standards. In C and C++, int8_t is defined in stdint.h as a signed eight-bit integer. In Rust, the corresponding type is i8; in Java, the analogous type is byte, which is also an eight-bit signed value. For arithmetic, int8 values typically wrap on overflow, but the exact behavior depends on the language: unsigned types wrap modulo 2^8 with well-defined results, while signed overflow may be undefined or implementation-defined in some environments.

Because it uses only one byte per value, int8 is useful for compact data storage in arrays and buffers, particularly in embedded systems, image and audio processing, and network protocols. Endianness affects multi-byte representations but not a single int8 value, which is endianness-agnostic. Common representations include decimal (e.g., 0, -1, 127, -128) as well as hexadecimal (0x7F, 0x80, 0xFF) and binary forms.

In practice, int8 is favored when fixed-size, memory-efficient storage is needed and when interfacing with hardware or data formats that specify eight-bit signed values. Developers should be aware of overflow rules and necessary casts to wider types when performing arithmetic that may exceed the representable range.