Chars

• There is one last primitive data type in C, the char (short for character) data type. char's store a single character.

• Character constants consist of a single character surrounded by single quotes: 'a', '3', '@', etc. The following escape sequences may also be used:

  Character name     Escape sequence
  ----------------------------------
  Newline (NL)             \n
  Horizontal tab (HT)      \t
  Backspace (BS)           \b
  Carriage return (CR)     \r
  Form feed (FF)           \f
  Backslash (\)            \\
  Single quote (')         \'
  Double quote (")         \"
  Octal bit pattern        \ddd
  Null (0)                 \0
  

• A char can be used anywhere an int can be used. The compiler automatically casts it to its value in the machine's (usually ASCII) character encoding. chars are guaranteed to hold values between 0 and 127 and often used as "1-byte integers."

• To print or read in a character variable using print or scanf, use a %c specification field.