Integer Integer An integer (from the Latin "integer" meaning "whole") is a number that can be written without a fractional component. For example, 21, 4, 0, and −2048 are integers, while 9.75, , and are not. The set of integers consists of zero (), the positive natural numbers (, , , …), also called "whole numbers" or "counting numbers", and their additive inverses (the negative integers, i.e., −1, −2, −3, …). The set of integers is often denoted by a boldface Z ("") or blackboard bold formula_1 (Unicode U+2124 ℤ) standing for the German word "Zahlen" (, "numbers"). The integers form
Integer sorting pass over the data must be stable: items with equal digits should not change positions with each other. For greatest efficiency, the radix should be chosen to be near the number of data items, . Additionally, using a power of two near as the radix allows the keys for each pass to be computed quickly using only fast binary shift and mask operations. With these choices, and with pigeonhole sort or counting sort as the base algorithm, the radix sorting algorithm can sort data items having keys in the range from to in time . Many integer sorting algorithms have