Data types

Data types are used everywhere in a programming language like C#. Because it's a strongly typed language, you are required to inform the compiler about which data types you wish to use every time you declare a variable, as you will see in the chapter about variables. In this chapter we will take a look at some of the most used data types and how they work.

bool is one of the simplest data types. It can contain only 2 values - false or true. The bool type is important to understand when using logical operators like the if statement.

int is short for integer, a data type for storing numbers without decimals. When working with numbers, int is the most commonly used data type. Integers have several data types within C#, depending on the size of the number they are supposed to store.

string is used for storing text, that is, a number of chars. In C#, strings are immutable, which means that strings are never changed after they have been created. When using methods which changes a string, the actual string is not changed - a new string is returned instead.

char is used for storing a single character.

float is one of the data types used to store numbers which can contain decimals.

Summary

These are just the most basic data types in C# and I only told you the very basic stuff about them, because it's a pretty dry subject and you may want to see some data types in action before you read more about them. So, move on to the next article, where we'll be using variables to contain data of various types!

Later in this tutorial, we'll go much more in depth with all the various data types found in the .NET framework.