Java, A Beginner's Guide, 5th Edition, 5th Edition

Java’s Primitive Types

Java contains two general categories of built-in data types: object-oriented and non-object-oriented. Java’s object-oriented types are defined by classes, and a discussion of classes is deferred until later. However, at the core of Java are eight primitive (also called elemental or simple) types of data, which are shown in Table 2-1. The term primitive is used here to indicate that these types are not objects in an object-oriented sense, but rather, normal binary values. These primitive types are not objects because of efficiency concerns. All of Java’s other data types are constructed from these primitive types.

 

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