C plus plus character data types

The character data type is one of the primitive data types by C++ programming language. The character data type uses keyword $char$ and it has a minimum size of $1-byte$ or $8-bits$ .

This is good enough to hold any $ASCII$ characters because the values of characters in keyboard lies between $0-127$ . In other words, there are total $128$ characters in $ASCII$ 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

char

The most common form usage is char and its size of 1-byte good enough to hold any machine’s basic character set. The char is the keyword.

unsigned char

The plain char is unsigned in most machines and its size if 8-bits. But, the values it can take ranges from $0$ to $255$ .

signed char

The signed char is also of 8-bits and it takes positive as well as negative values. The range is from $-127$ to $+127$ . In some machines, it is $-127$ to $+128$ .

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 $8$ bits and starts with $L$ .

For example, $L 'c3'$ .

char16_t and char32_t

The char16_t and char32_t is to represent the UTF-8-character sets which is any natural language.