Data Types and Operators

Abstract

A computer program, written in any programming language, is basically made of three elements: data, operations on data, and the logic that determines the operations. Therefore, manipulating the data (i.e. holding and operating on it) is at the core of a typical computer program. The data is held by variables, and the operations are made by using what are called operators. Data handled by the program may come in different types, such as integer or character. Every language supports certain basic data types, called primitive data types. However, a given variable may hold data of one specific type only. As you know from Chapter 1, Java, in addition to supporting primitive data types, supports an infinite number of data types by letting you write classes. In this chapter, I discuss the primitive data types in detail, and introduce some nonprimitive data types built into the Java language.