Purpose of char in java

Question

I'm seeing both char and short are two bytes each, also the following is valid:

char a = 'x';
int b =  a;
long c = a;

However when I do short d = a; I'm getting an error that cannot convert from char to short. even though both are two bytes.

One use of char I can see is when you print it, it displays the character. Is that the only use of char?

Answer 1

In Java the data type char is an unsigned 2 byte variable while a short is signed 2 byte variable. Because of this difference you cannot convert a char to a short because a char has that extra bit that isn't the signed bit.

This means that if you convert char to a short you would have to truncate the char which would cause the complaining.