Question: In a C# enumeration, are there any negative side effects of using a negative number?

I am modelling response codes and one of the codes in negative. This compiles but I want to know if there are any negative side effects to this.

```
public enum ResponseCodes
{
    InvalidServerUserPasswordCombo = -1,

    // etc.
}

```

Answer: 
> 
> negative side effects of using a negative number
> 
> 
> 

Clearly, with any underlying signed type, any bitwise operations are going to get "interesting" very quickly.

But using an enum as a collection of related constants can quite happily use negative values.
There's no negative side effects, however, keep in mind that an enum gets initialized to zero in this instance:

```
class YourClass {
    public ResponseCodes ResponseCode { get; set; }
}

```

Providing just negative one will have an undesired impact for any users of the class (unless they initialize it.