======char   ======

====Description   ====

A data type that takes up 1 byte of memory that stores a character value.  Character literals are written in single quotes, like this: [= 'A' =] (for multiple characters - strings - use double quotes: "ABC").  

Characters are stored as numbers however. You can see the specific encoding in the [[ASCIIchart| ASCII chart]]. This means that it is possible to do arithmetic on characters, in which the ASCII value of the character is used (e.g. [= 'A' + 1 =] has the value 66, since the ASCII value of the capital letter A is 65). See [[arduino:communication:Serial/Println | Serial.println]] reference for more on how characters are translated to numbers.

The char datatype is a signed type, meaning that it encodes numbers from -128 to 127. For an unsigned, one-byte (8 bit) data type, use the ''byte'' data type.

====Example   ====

<code arduino>  char myChar = 'A';
  char myChar = 65;      // both are equivalent
</code>

====See also   ====

*[[arduino:data types:Byte]]
*[[arduino:data types:Int]]
*[[arduino:data types:Array]]
*[[arduino:communication:Serial/Println|Serial.println]]

Source: arduino.cc