Character Data Type

What is the char type?

The char data type stores a single character - any individual letter, digit, punctuation mark, or space.

Despite storing characters, char is an integral type - its value is stored internally as a whole number. Characters are mapped to numeric values through ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), which assigns each character a unique number from 0 to 127.

For example:

• 'A' = 65
• 'a' = 97
• '0' = 48
• ' ' (space) = 32

In C++, character literals must be enclosed in single quotes: 'g', '1', ' '.

Initializing chars

The recommended way to initialize char variables is using character literals:

char grade{'A'};  // preferred - stores code point 65

You can also initialize with integers, though this is discouraged:

char grade{65};  // stores integer 65 ('A') - not preferred

Printing and inputting chars

When outputting a char, std::cout displays the corresponding character:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    char response{'Y'};
    std::cout << response << '\n';  // displays 'Y'

    return 0;
}

For input, std::cin extracts only the first character:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << "Enter a character: ";
    char ch{};
    std::cin >> ch;
    std::cout << "You entered: " << ch << '\n';

    return 0;
}

If the user types "xyz", only 'x' is extracted - "yz" remains in the input buffer.

Extracting whitespace characters

By default, std::cin >> skips whitespace. To capture spaces, use std::cin.get():

char ch{};
std::cin.get(ch);  // extracts any character, including whitespace

Escape sequences

C++ defines special character sequences called escape sequences that begin with a backslash:

Example:

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::cout << "She said, \"Hello!\"\n";
    std::cout << "Path: C:\\Users\\Name\n";
    std::cout << "Column1\tColumn2\n";

    return 0;
}

Output:

She said, "Hello!"
Path: C:\Users\Name
Column1	Column2

Single vs double quotes

• Single quotes ('a'): Represent a single char literal
• Double quotes ("Hello"): Represent a C-style string (multiple characters)

Char size and range

The char type is always exactly 1 byte. By default, char may be signed (-128 to 127) or unsigned (0 to 255) depending on the compiler. For ASCII characters (0-127), the sign doesn't matter.

Other character types

C++ also provides:

• wchar_t: Wide character (avoid - implementation-defined size)
• char8_t: 8-bit Unicode (UTF-8)
• char16_t: 16-bit Unicode (UTF-16)
• char32_t: 32-bit Unicode (UTF-32)

For most programs, stick to char and ASCII characters.