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Basic Data Types

Basic Data Types:

C++ provides a rather large number of types. However, you can write perfectly good programs using only five of those:

Here are some examples of declaring and initializing variables:

int age = 28;

double price = 8.99;

char grade = 'A';

std::string message = "Game Over";

bool late_to_work = true;

Datatype Modifiers:

As the name implies, datatype modifiers are used with built-in data types to modify the length of data that a particular data type can hold. Data type modifiers in C++ are:

• signed
• unsigned
• short
• long

We will learn about these in a bit!

Const:

const (constant) variables cannot be changed by your program during execution.

const double quarter = 0.25;

// and now variable quarter can only be 0.25

Simply add the keyword const before the data type during declaration to make the variable not modifiable.

Type Conversion:

A type cast is basically a conversion from one type to another.

The notation (type) value means “convert value to type“. So for example:

double weight1;
int weight2;

weight1 = 154.49;
weight2 = (int) weight1;

// weight2 is now 154

Note: Going from a double to an int simply removes the decimal. There’s no rounding involved.