Integer Types

Integer Types

Integer types represent integer numbers and are sbyte, byte, short, ushort, int, uint, long and ulong. Let’s examine them one by one.

The sbyte type is an 8-bit signed integer. This means that the number of possible values for it is 28, i.e. 256 values altogether, and they can be both, positive and negative. The minimum value that can be stored in sbyte is SByte.MinValue = -128 (-27), and the maximum value is SByte.MaxValue = 127 (27-1). The default value is the number 0.

The byte type is an 8-bit unsigned integer type. It also has 256 different integer values (28) that can only be nonnegative. Its default value is the number 0. The minimal taken value is Byte.MinValue = 0, and the maximum is Byte.MaxValue = 255 (28-1).

The short type is a 16-bit signed integer. Its minimal value is Int16.MinValue = -32768 (-215), and the maximum is Int16.MaxValue = 32767 (215-1). The default value for short type is the number 0.

The ushort type is 16-bit unsigned integer. The minimum value that it can store is UInt16.MinValue = 0, and the minimum value is – UInt16.MaxValue = 65535 (216-1). Its default value is the number 0.

The next integer type that we will consider is int. It is a 32-bit signed integer. As we can notice, the growth of bits increases the possible values that a type can store. The default value for int is 0. Its minimal value is Int32.MinValue = -2,147,483,648 (-231), and its maximum value is Int32.MaxValue = 2,147,483,647 (231-1).

The int type is the most often used type in programming. Usually programmers use int when they work with integers because this type is natural for the 32-bit microprocessor and is sufficiently "big" for most of the calculations performed in everyday life.

The uint type is 32-bit unsigned integer type. Its default value is the number 0u or 0U (the two are equivalent). The 'u' letter indicates that the number is of type uint (otherwise it is understood as int). The minimum  value that it can take is UInt32.MinValue = 0, and the maximum value is UInt32.MaxValue = 4,294,967,295 (232-1).

The long type is a 64-bit signed type with a default value of 0l or 0L (the two are equivalent but it is preferable to use 'L' because the letter 'l' is easily mistaken for the digit one '1'). The 'L' letter indicates that the number is of type long (otherwise it is understood int). The minimal value that can be stored in the long type is Int64.MinValue = -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (-263) and its maximum value is Int64.MaxValue = 9,223,372,036,854, 775,807 (263-1).

The biggest integer type is the ulong type. It is a 64-bit unsigned type, which has as a default value – the number 0u, or 0U (the two are equivalent). The suffix 'u' indicates that the number is of type ulong (otherwise it is understood as long). The minimum value that can be recorded in the ulong type is UInt64.MinValue = 0 and the maximum is UInt64.MaxValue = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (264-1).

Integer Types – Example

Consider an example in which we declare several variables of the integer types we know, we initialize them and print their values to the console:

You would be able to see the declaration and initialization of a variable in detail in sections "Declaring Variables" and "Initialization of Variables" below, and it would become clear from the examples.

In the code snippet above, we demonstrate the use of integer types. For small numbers we use byte type, and for very large – ulong. We use unsigned types because all used values are positive numbers.