.. 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