Data Types

Data Types

Data types are used everywhere in a programming language like C#. Because it’s a strongly typed language, you are required to inform the compiler about which data types you wish to use every time you declare a variable, as you will see in the chapter about variables. In this chapter we will take a look at some of the most used data types and how they work.

bool is one of the simplest data types. It can contain only 2 values – false or true. The bool type is important to understand when using logical operators like the if statement.

int is short for integer, a data type for storing numbers without decimals. When working with numbers, int is the most commonly used data type. Integers have several data types within C#, depending on the size of the number they are supposed to store.

string is used for storing text, that is, a number of chars. In C#, strings are immutable, which means that strings are never changed after they have been created. When using methods which changes a string, the actual string is not changed – a new string is returned instead.

char is used for storing a single character.

float is one of the data types used to store numbers which may or may not contain decimals.

types:

Type Represents Range Default Value
bool Boolean value True or False False
byte 8-bit unsigned integer 0 to 255 0
char 16-bit Unicode character U +0000 to U +ffff ‘\0’
decimal 128-bit precise decimal values with 28-29 significant digits (-7.9 x 1028 to 7.9 x 1028) / 100 to 28 0.0M
double 64-bit double-precision floating point type (+/-)5.0 x 10-324 to (+/-)1.7 x 10308 0.0D
float 32-bit single-precision floating point type -3.4 x 1038 to + 3.4 x 1038 0.0F
int 32-bit signed integer type -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 0
long 64-bit signed integer type -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 0L
sbyte 8-bit signed integer type -128 to 127 0
short 16-bit signed integer type -32,768 to 32,767 0
uint 32-bit unsigned integer type 0 to 4,294,967,295 0
ulong 64-bit unsigned integer type 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 0
ushort 16-bit unsigned integer type 0 to 65,535 0

 

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