Primitive Data Types in C Programming

1. What is data type in C

Data type specifies what type of data a variable can hold.

There are four category of data type in C language. 

They are as follows:

Types Data Types
Basic (Primitive) data types int, char, float, double
Enumeration data type Enum
Derived data type pointer, array, structure, union
Void data type void

2. Primitive Data Types In C Language

There are two types of qualifiers are used with primitive data types

  1. Size Qualifier – short, long
  2. Sign Qualifier- signed, unsigned

Size qualifier specifies the size and range of data type short qualifier is used to store less amount of data compared to long qualifier.

Sign qualifier specifies whether a data type can store only positive value or positive and negative both.

By default a data type is signed qualifier.

Size of primitive data type depends on computer system and word size.

So our data type may vary with others.

If you want to check data size of int, char, float double you can use sizeof operator.

Example: How to find size of data types in c language.

#include

int main() {
  int a = 5;
  printf("Printing size of variable and data types\n");
  printf("size of int %d bytes \n", sizeof(int));
  printf("size of short %d bytes \n", sizeof(short));
  printf("size of long %d bytes \n", sizeof(long));
  printf("size of char %d bytes \n", sizeof(char));
  printf("size of float %d bytes \n", sizeof(float));
  printf("size of double %d bytes \n", sizeof(double));
  printf("size of int variable a %d bytes \n", sizeof(a));

}
Printing size of variable and data types
size of int 4 bytes 
size of short 2 bytes 
size of long 8 bytes 
size of char 1 bytes 
size of float 4 bytes 
size of double 8 bytes 
size of int variable a 4 bytes
Above Program shows the size of int, size of short, size of long, size of char, size of float, size of double data types in C. Similar way you can find size of all data types in C.

Following are details of data types with format specifier in c, range of data types in c.

1 Integer Data Type

Integer data ( example 1,2,3,4,5,6, ….. etc. ) is stored in int ,short and long data type.

Type Storage size Value range Format Specifier
int 4 bytes -32,768 to 32,767 or -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 %d or %i
unsigned int 4 bytes 0 to 65,535 or 0 to 4,294,967,295 %u
short 2 bytes -32,768 to 32,767 %hd
unsigned short 2 bytes 0 to 65,535 %hu
long 4 bytes -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 %ld
unsigned long 4 bytes 0 to 4,294,967,295 %lu

Example: Addition of integer number. 

#include < stdio.h >	
int main()
{
    int x=10;		//  initialize integer variable x to 10	
    int y=25;		//  initialize integer variable y to 25	
     int z=x+y;	 // add the values of variable x & y and store in variable z	
     printf("Sum of x+y = %i", z);
}

Output

 Sum of x+y =35

Note: Here %i is a format specifier which is used to print integer value.

2. Character Data Type

Character data ( example ‘a’ , ‘b’ , ‘f’, ….. etc. ) is stored in “char” data type.

Type Storage size Value range Format Specifier
unsigned char 1 byte 0 to 255 %c
signed char 1 byte -128 to 127 %c

Example: Declare and initialize character variable. 

#include
int main()
{
    char c1= 'A';  		//  initialize character variable c1 to A
    char c2 =66; 		// ASCII value of 66 is B, in c2 character B will store
    printf("value of variable c1 & c2 = %c  %c", c1,c2);
}

Output

value of variable c1 & c2 = A  B

3. Float and Double Data Types

Floating point value (example  11.23, 333.3330 etc. ) can be stored in data type float and double.

Small floating value can be stored in float and large floating stored in double. 

Type Storage size Value range Format Specifier Precision
float 4 byte 1.2E-38 to 3.4E+38 %f ,%e or %E for scientific notation 6 decimal places
double 8 byte 2.3E-308 to 1.7E+308 %lf 15 decimal places
long double 10 byte 3.4E-4932 to 1.1E+4932 %Lf 19 decimal places

Example: Declare and initialize float & double variable. 

#include
int main()
{
    float x=10.00;		//  initialize float variable x to 10.00
    float y=25.23;		//  initialize float variable y to 25.23
    float z=x+y;	// add the values of variable x & y and store in variable z
    printf("Sum of x+y = %f", z);
    double d = 11.234;	// initialize double variable d to 11.234
    printf("\n d= %f", d);		// \n is used for new line
    return 0;
}

Output:

Sum of x+y = 35.230000
 d= 11.234000