#992 – The System.Char Data Type

In C#, the char keyword is a synonym for the System.Char data type in the Base Class Library (BCL).  An instance of a char represents a single character, i.e. a single unit that is part of a written language.

Some examples of characters, all of which can be represented by a char:

• Uppercase or lowercase alphabetic characters from the English (Latin) alphabet (a..z, A..Z)
• Accented alphabetic characters
• Alphabetic characters from other alphabets (e.g. Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic, etc).
• Punctuation marks  (e.g. ! , = [ {, etc).
• Numeric digits (0..9)
• Control or formatting characters (e.g. end-of-line, delete)
• Mathematical and musical symbols
• Special graphical glyphs (e.g. trademark symbol, smiley face)

A character stored in an instance of a char takes up 2 bytes (16 bits).  The values are encoded as Unicode characters, using the UTF-16 encoding.