unsigned char

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File Format
Name unsigned char
Ontology
Released 1983

unsigned char is the smallest unsigned integer type in C++, it often gets typedef-ed as "byte" (alternatively people use signed char for that reason) because it uses one byte of memory (depending upon what architecture defines it as, but no less than 8 bits). The range of values that can definitely be stored in this type is 0 – 255.

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 value
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 128
0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 127
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 255

Operation 255+1 will likely cause a "roll over" and the result will be 0, but it is unwise to count on that when writing multi-architecture code, as it is possible to define byte in a processor to be more than 8 bits.

Other C++ datatypes of the same size

Other C++ data types storing unsigned integers

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