Data Types

In this lesson, we will explore how to specify the data type a Java program uses.

Why do we need data types?

Computers process various kinds of data. For example, an application might use numbers that contain a decimal point, integers, individual characters, and strings. The Java compiler needs to know what kind of data it is working with, and so the programmer needs to specify a data type. For example, we would use the data type

  • int for integers
  • char for characters
  • String for strings

As we will see, Java’s data types are organized into two categories

  • Primitive types
  • Reference types

Because the first program we showed you earlier is so simple, we will look at other Java examples as we discuss the topics in this lesson.

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