Character Constants

A character constant is one or more characters enclosed in single quotes, such as 'A', '+', or '\n'. In C, single-character constants have data type int. In C++, a character constant has type char. Multicharacter constants in both C and C++ have data type int.

To learn more about character constants, see the following topics.

Note: To compare sizes of character types, compile this as a C program and then as a C++ program.

Copy Code

#include <stdio.h>
#define CH 'x'       /* A CHARACTER CONSTANT */
void main(void) {
   char ch = 'x';    /* A char VARIABLE      */
   printf("\nSizeof int     = %d", sizeof(int) );
   printf("\nSizeof char    = %d", sizeof(char) );
   printf("\nSizeof ch      = %d", sizeof(ch) );
   printf("\nSizeof CH      = %d", sizeof(CH) );
   printf("\nSizeof wchar_t = %d", sizeof(wchar_t) );
}

Note: Sizes are in bytes.

Sizes of character types

Output when compiled as C program	Output when compiled as C++ program
Sizeof int = 4	Sizeof int = 4
Sizeof char = 1	Sizeof char = 1
Sizeof ch = 1	Sizeof ch = 1
Sizeof CH = 4	Sizeof CH = 1
Sizeof wchar_t = 2	Sizeof wchar_t = 2