Beginning Programming with C++ For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5

Character Expressions

In This Chapter

Defining character variables and constants

Encoding characters

Declaring a string

Outputting characters to the console

Chapter 4 introduces the concept of the integer variable. This chapter introduces the integer’s smaller sibling, the character or char (pronounced variously as care, chair, or as in the first syllable of charcoal) to us insiders. I use characters in programs that appear in earlier chapters — this chapter introduces them formally.

Defining Character Variables

Character variables are declared just like integers except with the keyword char in place of int:

  char inputCharacter;

Character constants are defined as a single character enclosed in single quotes, as in the following:

  char letterA = 'A';

This may seem like a silly question, but what exactly is ‘A’? To answer that, I need to explain what it means to encode characters.

Encoding characters

As mentioned in Chapter 1, everything in the computer is represented by a pattern of ones and zeros — variations in voltage that are interpreted as numbers. Thus the bit ...