Why 2 bytes for char in java

The latest version of Unicode contains a repertoire of more than , characters covering modern and historic scripts, as well as multiple symbol sets. The evolution of Java was the time when the Unicode standards had been defined for very smaller character set. Therefore the size of the char data type in Java is 2 byte, and same for the C language is 1 byte.

Hence Java uses Unicode standard. Previous Topic. Viewed times. Improve this question. Deduplicator 7, 4 4 gold badges 29 29 silver badges 47 47 bronze badges.

You mean unicode characters? Don't forget that Asian nations like Japan and China have well over characters. Most modern databases and programming languages have been using some form of UTF for a long time now. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Simon B Simon B 8, 4 4 gold badges 24 24 silver badges 32 32 bronze badges.

I'll also add that it's not the only language to do that. As an addendum to this answer: Java provides methods like Character. Because of these surrogate pairs, string operations like length , charAt and substring are really tricky i. Lots of characters consist of more than one Unicode code points. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. In Java SE 8 and later, you can use the int data type to represent an unsigned bit integer, which has a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of 2 32 Use the Integer class to use int data type as an unsigned integer.

See the section The Number Classes for more information. Static methods like compareUnsigned , divideUnsigned etc have been added to the Integer class to support the arithmetic operations for unsigned integers. The signed long has a minimum value of -2 63 and a maximum value of 2 63 In Java SE 8 and later, you can use the long data type to represent an unsigned bit long, which has a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of 2 64 Use this data type when you need a range of values wider than those provided by int.

The Long class also contains methods like compareUnsigned , divideUnsigned etc to support arithmetic operations for unsigned long. Its range of values is beyond the scope of this discussion, but is specified in the Floating-Point Types, Formats, and Values section of the Java Language Specification. As with the recommendations for byte and short , use a float instead of double if you need to save memory in large arrays of floating point numbers.

This data type should never be used for precise values, such as currency. For that, you will need to use the java. BigDecimal class instead. Numbers and Strings covers BigDecimal and other useful classes provided by the Java platform. For decimal values, this data type is generally the default choice. As mentioned above, this data type should never be used for precise values, such as currency.

This data type represents one bit of information, but its "size" isn't something that's precisely defined. In addition to the eight primitive data types listed above, the Java programming language also provides special support for character strings via the java. String class. String objects are immutable , which means that once created, their values cannot be changed.

The String class is not technically a primitive data type, but considering the special support given to it by the language, you'll probably tend to think of it as such. You'll learn more about the String class in Simple Data Objects.

It's not always necessary to assign a value when a field is declared. Fields that are declared but not initialized will be set to a reasonable default by the compiler.