What are the commonly used data types in programming languages?

Answer 1

Data types tell the compiler how many bytes will be allocated to the type and how those bytes will be interpreted.

For instance, consider the following 64-bit value:

0100101001100001011011100111010101100001011100100111100100000000

In hexadecimal notation this would be written:

0x4a616e7561727900

But what does this value actually mean? Without knowing the type it's impossible to say. It could be any of the following:

- a big-endian integer: 5,359,686,481,972,721,920

- a little-endian integer: 34,184,235,089,551,690

- a big-endian float: 2.03809e+050

- a little-endian float: 2.26484e-306

- a null-terminated string: "January"

All of these are perfectly valid interpretations for the exact same binary sequence. So in order for the compiler to correctly interpret this binary sequence it has to know what data type is actually being represented by that sequence. If we tell it that the sequence is a string of 8 characters then the compiler will correctly interpret the value as the null-terminated string "January".

Answer 2

Integer types (char, int, byte, word, long, short, etc) and floating point types (float, double, etc). All other types are simply variations on the integer type, or combinations of two or more types (struct, class, etc).

Answer 3

Different programming languages have different built-in classes. You can usually add your own classes.

Different programming languages have different built-in classes. You can usually add your own classes.

Different programming languages have different built-in classes. You can usually add your own classes.

Different programming languages have different built-in classes. You can usually add your own classes.

Answer 4

There are really just two data types in programming. Integer data types and floating point data types. These are known as the fundamental or built-in data types. All languages support them whether they are implemented as objects (as in Java) or as primitive data types (as in C or C++). Integer data types are by far the most used type because all character types, boolean types and pointer types are intrinsically integer types. The only real difference is in the length of each type, which is ultimately determined by the language implementation. Since a computer language is composed entirely of character types, it could be argued that 1-byte characters are by far the most-used data type of all.

Answer 5

The commonly used data types are the fundamental data types: char, int, bool, float, doubleand the pointer type void*. These types (including those with signed/unsigned and long/shorttype modifiers) have corresponding representations in the underlying architecture thus they provide the basic building blocks for every user-defined type.

Answer 6

Different programming languages have different built-in classes. You can usually add your own classes.