CODE FARM
Galaxy background

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

- Albert Camus

Primitive Types in C Language

28 Feb 2017

Integer Types Real Number Types Complex Number Types

char unsigned char signed char short unsiged short int unsiged int long unsigned long long long unsigned long long float double long double _Complex

1. Integer Types

The integer data types range in size from at least 8 bits to at least 32 bits. The C99 extends this range to include integer sizes of at least 64 bits. You should use integer types for storing whole number value (and the char data type for storing characters). The size and ranges listed for these types are minimums; depending on your computer platform, there sizes and ranges may be larger.

While there ranges provide a natural ordering, the standard does not require that any two types have a different range. For example, it is common for int and long to have the same range. The standard event allows signed char and long to have the same range, though such platforms are very unusual.

  • signed char

    The 8-bit signed char data type can hold integer values in the range of -128 to 127.

  • unsigned char

    The 8-bit unsigned char data type can hold integer values in the range of 0 to 255.

  • char

    Depending on your system, the char data type is defined as having the same range as either the signed char or the unsigned char data type (they are three distinct types, however). By convention, you should use the char data type specifically for storing ASCII characters (such as m), including escape sequences (such as \n).

  • short int

    The 16-bits short int data type can hold integer values in the range of -32,768 to 32,767. You may also refer to this data type as short, signed short int, or signed short.

  • unsigned short int

    The 16-bits unsigned short int data type can hold integer values in the range of 0 to 65535. You may also refer to this data type as unsigned short.

  • int

    The 32-bits int data type can hold integer values in the range of -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. You may also refer to this data type as signed int or signed.

  • unsigned int

    The 32-bit unsigned int data type can hold integer values in the range of 0 to 4,294,967,295. You may also refer to this data type simply as unsigned.

  • long int

    The 32-bit long int data type can hold integer values int the range of at least -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. (Depending on your system, this data type might be 64-bit, in which case its range is identical to that of the long long int data.) You may also refer to this data as long, signed long int, or signed long.

  • unsiged long int

    The 32-bit unsigned long int data type can hold integer values in the range of at least 0 to 4,294,967,295. (Depending on your system, this data type might be 64-bit, in which case its range is identical to that of the unsigned long long int data type.) You may aslo refer to this data type as unsigned long.

  • long long int

    The 64-bit long long int data type can hold integer values in the range of -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807. You may also refer to this data type as long long, signed long long int or signed long long. This type is not part of C89, but is both part of C99 and a GNU C extension.

  • unsigned long long int

    The 64-bit unsigned long long int data type can hold integer values in the range of at least 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. You may also refer to this data type as unsigned long long. This type is not part of C89, but is both part of C99 and a GNU C extension.

2. Real Number Types

There are three data types that represent fractional numbers. While the sizes and ranges of these types are consistent across most computer systems in use today, historically the sizes of there types varied from system to system. As such, the minimum and maximum values are stored in macro definitions in the library file float.h. In this section, we include the names of the macro definitions in place of their possible values; check you system’s float.h for specific numbers.

  • float

    The float data type is the smallest of the three floating point types, if they differ in size at all.

    Its minimum value is stored in the FLT_MIN, and should be no greater than 1e-37. Its maximum value is stored in the FLT_MAX, and should be no less than 1e37.

  • double

    The double data type is at least as large as the float type, and ti may be larger. Its minimum value is stored in DBL_MIN, and its maximum value is stored in DBL_MAX.

  • long double

    The long double data type is at least as large as the float type, and it may be larger. Its minimum value is stored in LDBL_MIN, and its maximum value is stored in LDBL_MAX.

All floating point data type are signed; trying to use unsigned float, for example, will cause a compile-time error.

The real number types provided in C are of finite precision, and accordingly, not all real numbers can be represented exactly. Most computer systems that GCC compiles for use a binary representation for real numbers, which is unable to precisely represent numbers such as, for example, 4.2. For this reason, we recommend that you consider not comparing real numbers for exactly equality with the == operator, but rather check that real numbers are within an acceptable tolerance.

3. Complex Number Types

GCC introduced some complex number types as an extension to C89. Similar features were introduced in C99, but there were a number of differences.

3.1 Standard Complex Number Types

Complex types were introduces in C99. There are three complex types:

float _Complex
double _Complex
long double _Complex

The names here begin with an unserscore and an uppercase letter in order to avoid conflicts with existing program’s identifiers. However, the C99 standard header file <complex.h> introduces some macros which make using complex type easier.

The <complex.h> header files also declares a number of functions for performing computations on complex number, for example the creal and cimag functions which respectively return the real and imaginary parts of a double complex number.

3.2 GNU Extensions for Complex Numbrer Types

GCC also introduced complex types as a GNU extension to C89, but the spelling is different. The floating-point complex types in GCC’s C89 extension are:

__complex__ float
__complex__ double
__complex__ long double

4. References

  1. https://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-c-manual/gnu-c-manual.html