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Mathematics
0 is the integer immediately preceding 1. Zero is an even number because it is divisible by 2 with no remainder. 0 is neither positive nor negative, or both positive and negative; cf. Signed zero. Many definitions include 0 as a natural number, in which case it is the only natural number that is not positive. Zero is a number which quantifies a count or an amount of null size. In most cultures, 0 was identified before the idea of negative things (i.e., quantities less than zero) was accepted.
As a value or a number, zero is not the same as the digit zero, used in numeral systems with positional notation. Successive positions of digits have higher weights, so the digit zero is used inside a numeral to skip a position and give appropriate weights to the preceding and following digits. A zero digit is not always necessary in a positional number system (e.g., the number 02). In some instances, a leading zero may be used to distinguish a number.Computer science
The most common practice throughout human history has been to start counting at one, and this is the practice in early classic computer programming languages such as Fortran and COBOL. However, in the late 1950s LISP introduced zero-based numbering for arrays while Algol 58 introduced completely flexible basing for array subscripts (allowing any positive, negative, or zero integer as base for array subscripts), and most subsequent programming languages adopted one or other of these positions. For example, the elements of an array are numbered starting from 0 in C, so that for an array of n items the sequence of array indices runs from 0 to n−1.
There can be confusion between 0- and 1-based indexing; for example, Java's JDBC indexes parameters from 1 although Java itself uses 0-based indexing.In databases, it is possible for a field not to have a value. It is then said to have a null value. For numeric fields it is not the value zero. For text fields this is not blank nor the empty string. The presence of null values leads to three-valued logic. No longer is a condition either true or false, but it can be undetermined. Any computation including a null value delivers a null result.A null pointer is a pointer in a computer program that does not point to any object or function. In C, the integer constant 0 is converted into the null pointer at compile time when it appears in a pointer context, and so 0 is a standard way to refer to the null pointer in code. However, the internal representation of the null pointer may be any bit pattern (possibly different values for different data types).In mathematics, −0 and +0 is equivalent to 0; both −0 and +0 represent exactly the same number, i.e., there is no "positive zero" or "negative zero" distinct from zero. However, in some computer hardware signed number representations, zero has two distinct representations, a positive one grouped with the positive numbers and a negative one grouped with the negatives; this kind of dual representation is known as signed zero, with the latter form sometimes called negative zero. These representations include the signed magnitude and one's complement binary integer representations (but not the two's complement binary form used in most modern computers), and most floating-point number representations (such as IEEE 754 and IBM S/390 floating-point formats).
In binary, 0 represents the value for "off", which means no electricity flow.Zero is the value of false in many programming languages.
The Unix epoch (the date and time associated with a zero timestamp) begins the midnight before the first of January 1970.The Classic Mac OS epoch and Palm OS epoch (the date and time associated with a zero timestamp) begins the midnight before the first of January 1904.Many APIs and operating systems that require applications to return an integer value as an exit status typically use zero to indicate success and non-zero values to indicate specific error or warning conditions.
Programmers often use a slashed zero to avoid confusion with the letter "O".
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