The character data type is one of the primitive data types by C++ programming language. The character data type uses keyword 
and it has a minimum size of 
or 
.
This is good enough to hold any 
characters because the values of characters in keyboard lies between 
. In other words, there are total 
characters in character set.
Learn C++ programming basics before you begin with character data types.
There are many types of character data types in C++. See the list below.
- char
- unsigned char
- signed char
- wchar_t
- char16_t
- char32_t
Contents
char
The most common form usage is and its size of good enough to hold any machine’s basic character set. The is the keyword.
unsigned char
The plain is unsigned in most machines and its size if . But, the values it can take ranges from 
to 
.
signed char
The 
is also of and it takes positive as well as negative values. The range is from 
to 
. In some machines, it is to 
.
wchar_t
This character data type can hold any character set which include not only the basic character set, but any extended character set of a system. The extended characters are wider than 
bits and starts with 
.
For example, 
.
char16_t and char32_t
The 
and 
is to represent the 
character sets which is any natural language.
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