Using C Datatypes (with Examples)

The Datatype defines the type of data being used. 

The C language has 5 basic (primary or primitive) data types, they are:

1. Character - char
2. Integer - int
3. Floating-point - float
4. Double - double
5. Void - void

Let's learn about each one of them one by one.

To learn about the size of data types, range of values for datatypes, and various type modifiers like signed, unsigned, long, and short -

• The char datatype refers to character values, enclosed in single quotes,
• The range of value for character datatype is from -127 to 127.
• As it's clear from the range, we can even use small integer values in the char datatype.

For example,

char status = 'Y';

• The int datatype is used to store whole numbers.
• Whole numbers are values without any decimal part or exponent part.
• The int datatype can store decimal (base 10), octal (base 8), and hexadecimal (base 16) values.

// simple int value
int a = 100;

// negative value
a = -100;

// unsigned int value - with suffix U or u
int x = 1000U;

// long int value
long int long_val = 3500L;

• With the value of int data type, we can use suffix U or u, to tell the compiler that the value is for unsigned int data type and suffix L or l for a long int value.

• The float data type is used to store real numbers which may have a decimal (fraction) part or an exponential part.
• It is a single-precision number.
• Let's see some examples for float value,

float x = 127.675;

// with suffix F or f
float y = 1000.5454F;

The real numbers are big enough that they cannot be stored in float datatype, are stored as double datatype.

It is a double-precision number.

 A double datatype value can hold above 15 to 17 digits before the decimal point and 15 to 17 digits after the decimal point.

Here is an example,

double x = 424455236424564.24663224663322;

We should only use the double datatype when we need such large numbers, otherwise not, because using double datatype makes the program slow.