C# | Literals - Tutorialspoint.dev

The fixed values are called as Literal. Literal is a value which is used by the variables. Values can be either an integer, float or string etc.

// Here 100 is a constant/literal.
int x = 100;

Literals can be of following types:

Integer Literals

Floating-point Literals

Character Literals

String Literals

Null Literals

Boolean Literals

Integer Literals: A literal of integer type is know as the integer literal. It can be octal, decimal or hexadecimal constant. No prefix is required for the decimal numbers. A suffix can also be used with the integer literals like U or u are used for unsigned numbers while l or L are used for long numbers. By default, every literal is of int type. For Integral data types (byte, short, int, long), we can specify literals in 3 ways:

Decimal literals (Base 10) : In this form the allowed digits are 0-9.
```
int x = 101;
```
Octal literals (Base 8) : In this form the allowed digits are 0-7.
```
// The octal number should be prefix with 0.
int x = 0146; 
```
Hexa-decimal literals (Base 16) : In this form the allowed digits are 0-9 and characters are a-f. We can use both uppercase and lowercase characters. As we know that c# is a case-sensitive programming language but here c# is not case-sensitive.
```
// The hexa-decimal number should be prefix
// with 0X or 0x.
int x = 0X123Face; 
```

Examples:

07778    // invalid: 8 is not an octal digit 
045uu    // invalid: suffix (u) is repeated
456    // valid decimal literal
02453    // valid octal literal 
0x65d    // valid hexadecimal literal 
12356    // valid int literal 
304U    // valid unsigned int literal 
3078L    // valid long literal 
965UL    // valid unsigned long literal

Program:

// C# program to illustrate the use of Integer Literals 
using System; 
  
class Geeks { 
      
    // Main method 
    public static void Main(String []args) 
    { 
        // decimal-form literal 
        int a = 101;  
          
        // octal-form literal 
        int b = 0145;  
          
        // Hexa-decimal form literal 
        int c = 0xFace;  
          
        Console.WriteLine(a); 
        Console.WriteLine(b); 
        Console.WriteLine(c); 
    } 
} 

/div>

101
145
64206

Floating-point Literals: The literal which has an integer part, a decimal point, a fractional part and an exponent part is known as the floating point literal. These can be represented either in decimal form or exponential form.

Examples:

Double d = 3.14145       // Valid
Double d = 312569E-5      // Valid
Double d = 125E             // invalid: Incomplete exponent 
Double d = 784f            // valid
Double d = .e45           // invalid: missing integer or fraction

Program:

// C# program to illustrate the use of  
// floating-point literals 
using System; 
  
class Geeks { 
      
    // Main Method 
    public static void Main(String []args) 
    { 
        // decimal-form literal 
        double a = 101.230;  
          
        // It also acts as decimal literal 
        double b = 0123.222;  
          
        Console.WriteLine(a); 
        Console.WriteLine(b); 
    } 
} 

Output:

101.23
123.222

Note: By default, every floating-point literal is of double type and hence we can’t assign directly to float variable. But we can specify floating-point literal as float type by suffixed with f or F. We can specify explicitly floating point literal as the double type by suffixed with d or D, of course, this convention is not required.

Character Literals: For character data types we can specify literals in 3 ways:

Single quote : We can specify literal to char data type as single character within single quote.
```
char ch = 'a';
```
Unicode Representation : We can specify char literals in Unicode representation ‘uxxxx’. Here xxxx represents 4 hexadecimal numbers.
```
char ch = 'u0061';// Here /u0061 represent a.
```

Escape Sequence : Every escape character can be specify as char literals.

char ch = '
';

Escape Sequence	Meaning
\	character
’	‘ character
?	? character
”	” character
	Backspace
a	Alert or Bell
	New Line
f	Form Feed
	Carriage Return
v	Vertical Tab
xhh…	Hexadecimal number of one or more digits

Example :

// C# program to illustrate the use of char literals 
using System; 
  
class Geeks { 
      
// Main Method 
public static void Main(String []args) 
    { 
          
        // character literal within single quote 
        char ch = 'a';  
          
        // Unicode representation 
        char c = 'u0061';  
          
        Console.WriteLine(ch); 
        Console.WriteLine(c); 
          
        // Escape character literal 
        Console.WriteLine("Hello
Geeks	!"); 
    } 
} 

a
a
Hello

Geeks    !

String Literals: Literals which are enclosed in double quotes(“”) or starts with @”” are known as the String literals.

Examples:

String s1 = "Hello Geeks!";

String s2 = @"Hello Geeks!";

Program:

// C#  program to illustrate the use of String literals 
using System; 
  
class Geeks { 
      
    // Main Method 
    public static void Main(String []args) 
    { 
          
        String s = "Hello Geeks!"; 
        String s2 = @"Hello Geeks!"; 
  
        // If we assign without "" then it  
        // treats as a variable 
        // and causes compiler error 
        // String s1 = Geeks; 
          
        Console.WriteLine(s); 
        Console.WriteLine(s2); 
          
    } 
} 

Output:

Hello Geeks!
Hello Geeks!

Boolean Literals: Only two values are allowed for Boolean literals i.e. true and false.

Example:

bool b = true;
bool c = false

Program:

// C# program to illustrate the use 
// of boolean literals 
using System; 
  
class Geeks { 
      
    // Main Method 
    public static void Main(String []args) 
    { 
        bool b = true; 
        bool c = false; 
          
        // these will give compile time error 
        // bool d = 0; 
        // bool e = 1; 
        // Console.WriteLine(d); 
        // Console.WriteLine(e); 
          
        Console.WriteLine(b); 
        Console.WriteLine(c); 
    } 
} 

Output:

True
False

C# | Literals

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