C++ data type classification

The C++ programming language has a wide variety of data types. In this article, you are going to get an overview of how these data types are classified.

A data type is a computer representation of identifiers such as variables or constants. The C++ data types are divided into 3 categories.

Builtin types
User-defined types
Derived-types

Modifiers

The C++ language supports all the primitive data types like C language. The range of each of the basic data types can be changed using modifiers. A modifier changes the range of allowed values for a built-in data type.

The C++ modifiers are listed below.

signed
unsigned
short
long

The list of all the builtin data types with each modifier and their range is given in the following table.

(2^-7) \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px}(2^7) - 1 — Table 1 – C++ Data Type Classification

0 \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^8)-1 — Table 1 – C++ Data Type Classification

Note: Some of the ranges is compiler dependent.

Data Type	Size	Range
char	1 byte	$(2^-7) \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px}(2^7) - 1$
unsigned char	1 byte	$0 \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^8)-1$
signed char	1 byte	$(2^-7) \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^7) - 1$
int	2 bytes	$(2^-15) \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^15)-1$
unsigned int	2 bytes	$0 \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^16)-1$
signed int	2 bytes	$(2^-15) \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^15)-1$
short int	2 bytes	$(2^-15) \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^15)-1$
long int	4 bytes	$(2^-31) \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^31)-1$
signed long int	4 bytes	$(2^-31) \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^31)-1$
unsigned long int	4 bytes	$0 \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} (2^32)-1$
float	4 bytes	$3.4E-38 \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} 3.4E+38$
double	8 bytes	$1.7E-308 \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} 1.7E+308$
long double	10 bytes	$3.4E-4932 \hspace{5px} to \hspace{5px} 3.4E+4932$