C Data Types

 In the C programming language, data types refer to an extensive system used for declaring variables or functions of different types. The type of a variable determines how much space it occupies in storage and how the bit pattern stored is interpreted.

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1 Basic Types: They are arithmetic types and consists of the two types: (a) integer types and (b) floatingpoint types. 

2 Enumerated types: They are again arithmetic types and they are used to define variables that can only be assigned certain discrete integer values throughout the program. 

3 The type void: The type specifier void indicates that no value is available. 

4 Derived types: They include (a) Pointer types, (b) Array types, (c) Structure types, (d) Union types and (e) Function types.

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Storage size 

Value range 

Char 1 byte -128 to 127 or 0 to 255

 unsigned char 1 byte 0 to 255

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signed char 1 byte -128 to 127 

Int 2 or 4 bytes -32,768 to 32,767 or -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 

unsigned int 2 or 4 bytes 0 to 65,535 or 0 to 4,294,967,295

 Short 2 bytes -32,768 to 32,767 

unsigned short 2 bytes 0 to 65,535 

Long 4 bytes -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 

unsigned long 4 bytes 0 to 4,294,967,295 

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To get the exact size of a type or a variable on a particular platform, you can use the sizeof operator. The expressions sizeof(type) yields the storage size of the object or type in bytes. Following is an example to get the size of int type on any machine:

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#include  <studio.h>

#include <limits.h>

int main() 

{ 

 printf("Storage size for int : %d \n", sizeof(int)); 

 return 0; 

}

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When you compile and execute the above program, it produces the following result on Linux: 

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Storage size for int : 4 

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