These functions can be used when you're adding numbers together and don't want the total to overflow.  Normally, when an addition overflows, it just drops back down to 0 and you're left with however much is left over after the overflow. 

If you were doing something like calculating the distance between two points, and it overflowed, they would appear to be very close to each other.  Using these functions, you still won't know how far apart they are, but you'll be able to see that the points are very far apart (at least 0xFFFFFFFF, in the case of 32 bits).

Code:

#include <stdint.t>

uint16_t saturateadd16(uint16_t a, uint16_t b) {
    return (a > 0xFFFF - b) ? 0xFFFF : a + b;
}

uint32_t saturateadd32(uint32_t a, uint32_t b) {
    return (a > 0xFFFFFFFF - b) ? 0xFFFFFFFF : a + b;
}

Usage:

uint32_t x=14, y=15, sum;

 

sum = saturateadd32(x, y);

  

Extensions:

The functions can easily be adapted to 8 or 64 bit operations at well.

There is significant overhead in function calls, so consider inlining the functions or changing them to macros instead.

Sources:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/121240/saturating-addition-in-c