How to implement Unary coding?

Question

I have a question about how to implement unary encoding. For example: How can we differ n (non-negative) from n (strictly positive)? I don’t understand a bit. Please help me.

I have changed and written code.

public class unary {
    public static void main (String[] args) {
        int n = 10;
        int i = 0;
        String t = "";
        while (i<n) {
            t += "1";
            i++;
        }
        t += "0";
        System.out.println(n);
        System.out.println("unary representation:");
        System.out.println(t);
    }
}

Result:

10
unary representation:
11111111110

Is it right like this?

Answer 1

Non-negative natural numbers includes 0. Strictly positive natural numbers does not. You don't need to differ non-negative from strictly-positive it is all about definition.

Unary string 0 represents the first natural number which is 0 if the domain is non-negative numbers or 1 if the domain is strictly-positive numbers.

The number 10 is represented as 1111111110 while dealing with strictly positive numbers or 11111111110 while dealing non-negative numbers.