integer - The range of int in Java

Question

I understand that the int range in Java should be -2^31 to 2^31-1.

But when I run this code snippet with 20:

public class Factorial {
    public int factorial(int n) {
        int fac=1;
        for (int i=1; i<=n; i++) {
            fac *= i;
            System.out.println("Factorial of " + i + " is: " + fac);
        }
        return fac;
    }
}

The output:

Factorial of 1 is: 1
Factorial of 2 is: 2
Factorial of 3 is: 6
Factorial of 4 is: 24
Factorial of 5 is: 120
Factorial of 6 is: 720
Factorial of 7 is: 5040
Factorial of 8 is: 40320
Factorial of 9 is: 362880
Factorial of 10 is: 3628800
Factorial of 11 is: 39916800
Factorial of 12 is: 479001600
Factorial of 13 is: 1932053504
Factorial of 14 is: 1278945280
Factorial of 15 is: 2004310016
Factorial of 16 is: 2004189184
Factorial of 17 is: -288522240
Factorial of 18 is: -898433024
Factorial of 19 is: 109641728
Factorial of 20 is: -2102132736

It's not making sense from 13 (13! = 6,227,020,800). It looks like it's out of range and wrapped around. What's wrong? Is it due to Eclipse that I'm using?

Though I think it's not relevant, here is the test code:

public class TestFac {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int n;
        Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);

        System.out.println("Input num you want to factorial: ");
        n = sc.nextInt();
        Factorial fac = new Factorial();
        fac.factorial(n);
    }
}

Answer 1

Here I would like to mention the concept of integer clock.

The maximum and minimum values for int in Java are:

int MAX_VALUE = 2147483647
int MIN_VALUE = -2147483648

Please check the following results

 int a = 2147483645;
 for(int i=0; i<10; i++) {
    System.out.println("a:" + a++);
 }

Output:

a:2147483645
a:2147483646
a:2147483647
a:-2147483648
a:-2147483647
a:-2147483646
a:-2147483645
a:-2147483644
a:-2147483643
a:-2147483642

It shows that when you go beyond the limit of the +ve range of integer, the next values starts from its negative starting value again.

 -2147483648,       <-----------------
 -2147483647,                        |
 -2147483646,                        |
  .                                  |
  .                                  |
  .                                  |    (the next value will go back in -ve range)
  0,                                 |
 +1,                                 |
 +2,                                 |
 +3,                                 |
  .                                  |
  .                                  |
  .,                                 |
 +2147483645,                        |
 +2147483646,                        |
 +2147483647     ---------------------

If you calculate the factorial of 13 it is 6227020800. This value goes beyond the int range of java. So the new value will be

        6227020800
      - 2147483647 (+ve max value)
   -----------------
Value = 4079537153
      - 2147483648 (-ve max value)
   -----------------
value = 1932053505
   -             1  (for zero in between -ve to +ve value)
  ----------------
Answer = 1932053504

So, in your answer, the factorial of 13 is becoming 1932053504. This is how integer clock works.

You can use long datatype instead of integer to achieve your purpose.