Menu
Is there any reason why Java char primitive data type is 2 bytes unlike C which is 1 byte?
Thanks
212
And, every char is made up of 2 bytes because Java internally uses UTF-16. For instance, if a String contains a word in the English language, the leading 8 bits will all be 0 for every char, as an ASCII character can be represented using a single byte.
The 'char' data type in Java originally used for representing 16-bit Unicode. Therefore the size of the char data type in Java is 2 byte, and same for the C language is 1 byte. Hence Java uses Unicode standard. What are features of Java language?
Java used as a internationalize so, its work in different languages and need to space more than one byte, that's why its take 2byte of space in char.
When Java was originally designed, it was anticipated that any Unicode character would fit in 2 bytes (16 bits), so char and Character were designed accordingly. In fact, a Unicode character can now require up to 4 bytes. Thus, UTF-16, the internal Java encoding, requires supplementary characters use 2 code units. Characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (the most common ones) still use 1. A Java char is used for each code unit. This Sun article explains it well.
166
char in Java is UTF-16 encoded, which requires a minimum of 16-bits of storage for each character.
36
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
