Data Types in C

Basic data types in C

There are very few data types provided by C.
C does not provide any data-type for storing text as the it is made up of individual characters.

Following table shows the basic data-types:

Data-type	Keyword	Storage size in bytes	Range	Use
Character	char	1	-128 to 127	For storing characters.
Integer	int	2	-32768 to 32767	For storing integer numbers.
Floating Point	float	4	3.4E-38 to 3.4E+38	For storing the floating point numbers.
Double	double	8	1.7E-308 to 1.7E+308	For storing the big floating point numbers.
Valueless	void	0	Valueless

In the above table we have a data-type called 'void' which has no value but is used in the following cases:

• For specifying the return type of the function when the function returns no value.
• For specifying the parameters of the function when no arguments are accepted by the function from the caller.
• For creating generic pointers.

The unsigned and signed char is used for ensuring the portability of the programs which store the non-character data as char.

Following table shows the different signed and unsigned char:

Data-type	Storage size in bytes	Range
char	1	-128 to 127
unsigned char	1	0 to 255
signed char	1	-128 to 127
int	2	-32768 to 32767
unsigned int	2	0 to 65535
signed short int	2	-32768 to 32767
signed int	2	-32768 to 32767
short int	2	-32768 to 32767
unsigned short int	2	0 to 65535
long int	4	-2147483648 to 2147483647
unsigned long int	4	0 to 4294967295
signed long int	4	-2147483678 to 2147483647
float	4	3.4E-38 to 3.4E+38
double	8	1.7E-308 to 1.7E+308
long double	10	3.4E-4932 to 1.1E+4932