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diff --git a/docs/source/lang/cpp/char.rst b/docs/source/lang/cpp/char.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b8747f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/source/lang/cpp/char.rst @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +.. highlight:: cpp + +.. _lang-char: + +``char`` +======== + +The ``char`` type stores a 1-byte character value (or integer with +value from -128 to 127). Character literals are written in single +quotes, like this: ``'A'`` (for multiple characters - strings - use +double quotes: ``"ABC"``). + + +Just like everything else on a computer, characters are stored as +numbers. You can see the specific encoding in the `ASCII chart +<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#ASCII_printable_characters>`_\ +. This means that it is possible to do arithmetic on characters, in +which the ASCII value of the character is used (e.g. ``'A' + 1`` has the +decimal value 66, since the ASCII value of the capital letter A in +decimal is 65). See the :ref:`Serial.println() +<lang-serial-println>` documentation for more information about how +characters are converted into numbers. + +The ``char`` datatype is a signed type, meaning that it encodes +numbers from -128 to 127. For an unsigned type, which stores values +from 0 to 255, just use the type ``unsigned char`` (two words). + + +Example +------- + +:: + + // the following two lines are equivalent, using the ASCII + // character encoding: + char c = 'A'; + char c = 65; + + +See also +-------- + + +- :ref:`lang-int` +- :ref:`lang-array` (a string is just an array of ``char``\ s) +- :ref:`Serial.println() <lang-serial-println>` + + + +.. include:: cc-attribution.txt |