why we use char array to create a buffer [duplicate]

Question

Why we use a char array to create a buffer in the memory instead of a int array and if int array can be used to create the buffer,how to get the output from it ?

int main()
{
    char  buffer[100];
    fread(buffer,sizeof(int),4,stdin);
    int i=0;
    while(i<4)
    {
        printf ("%d,\n",buffer[i]);
        i=i+1;
    }    
}

Answer 1

Very simply: we use a char array if we want to read bytes.

Either text strings, or (more generally), binary objects.

A "byte" is usually 1/4 the size of an "int".

Moreover, socket "read" and "write" counts are byte counts. By longstanding convention, they expect byte buffers.

Answer 2

Because char in the C language is exactly 1 byte. So it's logical to write in the file byte by byte.