Char

Primitive Data Types

Char

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The next datatype we will look at is character, which is represented with char in Java. A char can almost represent any character in any language. To see a full list of potential characters, look up the Unicode character table. View the code below for an example of how to declare and use the character datatype.

CharDataTypeExample.java
package exlcode;

public class CharDataTypeExample {

  // char can be any one character, including spaces
  public static char exampleVariableOne = 'c';
  public static char exampleVariableTwo = 'V';
  public static char exampleVariableThree = ' ';

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println(exampleVariableOne);
    System.out.println(exampleVariableTwo);
    System.out.println(exampleVariableThree + "Hello World!");
  }
}

char holds a single character with an apostrophe on each side. Notice that double quotation marks will not work for characters. Keep in mind that upper and lower case characters are represented by a different pattern. Additionally, special characters such as punctuation and spaces can be represented by the char data type as well.

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Application Question

Which one of these is a valid character declaration?