Primitive Data Types

Introduction

The 8 primitive data types byte, short, int, long, char, boolean, float, and double are the types that store most raw numerical data in Java programs.

Syntax

• int aInt = 8; // The defining (number) part of this int declaration is called a literal.
• int hexInt = 0x1a; // = 26; You can define literals with hex values prefixed with 0x.
• int binInt = 0b11010; // = 26; You can also define binary literals; prefixed with 0b.
• long goodLong = 10000000000L; // By default, integer literals are of type int. By adding the L at the end of the literal you are telling the compiler that the literal is a long. Without this the compiler would throw an “Integer number too large” error.
• double aDouble = 3.14; // Floating-Point Literals are of type double by default.
• float aFloat = 3.14F; // By default this literal would have been a double (and caused an “Incompatible Types” error), but by adding an F we tell the compiler it is a float.

Remarks

Java has 8 primitive data types, namely boolean, byte, short, char, int, long, float and double. (All other types are reference types. This includes all array types, and built-in object types / classes that have special significance in the Java language; e.g. String, Class and Throwable and its subclasses.)

The result of all operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc) on a primitive type is at least an int, thus adding a short to a short produces an int, as does adding a byte to a byte, or a char to a char. If you want to assign the result of that back to a value of the same type, you must cast it. e.g.

byte a = 1;
byte b = 2;
byte c = (byte) (a + b);

Not casting the operation will result in a compile error.

This is due to the following part of the Java Language Spec, §2.11.1:

A compiler encodes loads of literal values of types byte and short using Java Virtual Machine instructions that sign-extend those values to values of type int at compile-time or run-time. Loads of literal values of types boolean and char are encoded using instructions that zero-extend the literal to a value of type int at compile-time or run-time. [..]. Thus, most operations on values of actual types boolean, byte, char, and short are correctly performed by instructions operating on values of computational type int.

The reason behind this is also specified in that section:

Given the Java Virtual Machine’s one-byte opcode size, encoding types into opcodes places pressure on the design of its instruction set. If each typed instruction supported all of the Java Virtual Machine’s run-time data types, there would be more instructions than could be represented in a byte. […] Separate instructions can be used to convert between unsupported and supported data types as necessary.