title: Difference between Objective-C primitive numbers
body: <p>What is the difference between <del>objective-c</del> C primitive numbers? I know what they are and how to use them (somewhat), but I'm not sure what the capabilities and uses of each one is. Could anyone clear up which ones are best for some scenarios and not others?</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><a href="/questions/tagged/int" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'int'" rel="tag">int</a></li>
  <li><a href="/questions/tagged/float" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'float'" rel="tag">float</a></li>
  <li><a href="/questions/tagged/double" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'double'" rel="tag">double</a></li>
  <li><a href="/questions/tagged/long" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'long'" rel="tag">long</a></li>
  <li><a href="/questions/tagged/short" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'short'" rel="tag">short</a></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p><strong>What can I store with each one?</strong> I know that some can store more precise numbers and some can only store whole numbers. Say for example I wanted to store a latitude (possibly retrieved from a <code>CLLocation</code> object), which one should I use to avoid loosing any data?</p>
  
  <p>I also noticed that there are <code>unsigned</code> variants of each one. What does that mean and how is it different from a primitive number that is not unsigned?</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/cocoa/conceptual/ProgrammingWithObjectiveC/FoundationTypesandCollections/FoundationTypesandCollections.html" rel="nofollow">Apple has some interesting documentation</a> on this, however it doesn't fully satisfy my question.</p>