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Data Types

Explore the fundamental concept of data types in Java. Understand primitive types including integers, floating points, characters, and booleans, as well as reference types like objects and strings. This lesson helps you grasp how Java classifies data, which is essential for writing and debugging effective Java programs.

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 ...