Data Types

[Drake]

Data types are used to represent numbers and characters used in a program, why do programmers benifit from having such a variety? Also if anyone could help me out with what an unsigned character is used for?

thanks for the help

[Luckychap]

Tipically a char is 8-bit long, and most significant bit(MSB) represent the sign value.
If MSB is 0, it means positive and if MSB is 1, it means negative.

So only last 7 bits (out of 8 bits) are used to store the actule char value. And total number of values will be 2^7 = 128 (0 to 127) or (-128 to 0).
But when we declare a char as unsigned then there is no importance of the sign bit (i.e MSB), So now total value stored in char will be 2^8 = 256 (0 to 255), and this will cover all the char values.

One of important use of unsigned char is in embedded system, to store the value of some 8-bit register.

[Narue]

>why do programmers benifit from having such a variety?
They can choose the data type that best fits the problem and optimize speed or storage costs.

>Also if anyone could help me out with what an unsigned character is used for?
Off the top of my head: If you don't want negative numbers, if you want to extend the range of signed char but don't want to jump up to short int, if you need the wrap-around qualities of an unsigned type, if you want to store an object in an array of bytes (unsigned char is the only type guaranteed not to have padding bits).