#993 – Some Examples of Characters

Given that the System.Char data type (char) can store any Unicode character, encoded using UTF-16, below are some examples of valid characters.

Here is the list that we bind to, to display some characters:

            CharList = new ObservableCollection<char>
            {
                'a', 'Z', '.', '$', '\x00e1', '\x00e7', '\x0398', '\x03a9',
                '\x0429', '\x046c', '\x05d4', '\x05da', '\x0626', '\x0643',
                '\x0b92', '\x0caf', '\x0e0d', '\x1251', '\x13ca', '\x14cf',
                '\x21bb', '\x21e9', '\x222d', '\x2285', '\x2466', '\x2528',
                '\x2592', '\x265a', '\x265e', '\x2738', '\x3062', '\x3063',
                '\x3082', '\x3071', '\x3462', '\x3463', '\x3464', '\x3485',
                '\x5442', '\x54e1', '\x5494', '\xac21', '\xae25', '\xfc45',
                '\xfce8'
            };

#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.