The char data type in Java

A char is a single character, that is a letter, a digit, a punctuation mark, a tab, a space or something similar. A char literal is a single one character enclosed in single quote marks like this

char myCharacter = 'g';
Some characters are hard to type. For these Java provides escape sequences. This is a backslash followed by an alphanumeric code. For instance '\n' is the newline character. '\t' is the tab character. '\\' is the backslash itself. The following escape sequences are defined:

\bbackspace
\ttab
\nlinefeed
\fformfeed
\rcarriage return
\"double quote, "
\'single quote, '
\\backslash, \
The double quote escape sequence is used mainly inside strings where it would otherwise terminate the string. For instance

System.out.println("And then Jim said, \"Who's at the door?\"");
It isn't necessary to escape the double quote inside single quotes. The following line is legal in Java

char doublequote = '"';
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Last Modified July 14, 1997
Copyright 1997 Elliotte Rusty Harold
elharo@metalab.unc.edu