Slide 8.5: Keywords
Slide 8.7: Data types (cont.)
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Data Types

The variables in C#, are categorized into the following types: (i) value types, (ii) reference types, and (iii) pointer types.

Value Types
Value type variables can be assigned a value directly. They are derived from the class System.ValueType. Some examples are int, char, and float, which stores numbers, alphabets, and floating point numbers, respectively. When you declare an int type, the system allocates memory to store the value. The following table lists the available value types in C#:

Type Represents Range Default Value
bool Boolean value True or False False
byte 8-bit unsigned integer 0 to 255 0
char 16-bit Unicode character U +0000 to U +ffff '\0'
decimal 128-bit precise decimal values with 28-29 significant digits (-7.9 x 1028 to 7.9 x 1028) / 100 to 28 0.0M
double 64-bit double-precision floating point type (+/-)5.0 x 10-324 to (+/-)1.7 x 10308 0.0D
float 32-bit single-precision floating point type -3.4 x 1038 to + 3.4 x 1038 0.0F
int 32-bit signed integer type -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 0
long 64-bit signed integer type -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 0L
sbyte 8-bit signed integer type -128 to 127 0
short 16-bit signed integer type -32,768 to 32,767 0
uint 32-bit unsigned integer type 0 to 4,294,967,295 0
ulong 64-bit unsigned integer type 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 0
ushort 16-bit unsigned integer type 0 to 65,535 0

Reference Types
The reference types do not contain the actual data stored in a variable, but they contain a reference (a memory location) to the variables. Examples of built-in reference types are: object, dynamic, and string.