---
title: 1.17 Character Types
description: "C++ provides multiple character data types for storing characters of different sizes and encoding schemes. The `char` type is commonly used for ordinary characters, while other character types support larger character sets such as Unicode. This example demonstrates the declaration…"
url: "https://edcret.in/docs/cpp-programming/basic-refreshers-cplusplus/1-17-character-types/"
updated: "2026-07-28"
category: C++ Programming / Basic Refreshers
---

# 1.17 Character Types

C++ provides multiple character data types for storing characters of different sizes and encoding schemes. The `char` type is commonly used for ordinary characters, while other character types support larger character sets such as Unicode.

This example demonstrates the declaration and use of commonly used character data types.

## Source Code

```
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    char letter = 'A';
    wchar_t wide_letter = L'A';
    char16_t utf16_letter = u'A';
    char32_t utf32_letter = U'A';

    std::cout << "char: " << letter << 'n';
    std::cout << "wchar_t size: " << sizeof(wchar_t) << " byte(s)n";
    std::cout << "char16_t size: " << sizeof(char16_t) << " byte(s)n";
    std::cout << "char32_t size: " << sizeof(char32_t) << " byte(s)n";

    return 0;
}
```

## Output

```
char: A
wchar_t size: 4 byte(s)
char16_t size: 2 byte(s)
char32_t size: 4 byte(s)
```

> The size of `wchar_t` is implementation-defined and may be 2 bytes or 4 bytes depending on the compiler and operating system.

## Explanation

- `char` stores a single ordinary character and is typically used for ASCII text.
- `wchar_t` is a wide character type intended to represent a larger character set than `char`.
- `char16_t` stores a UTF-16 code unit and is primarily used for UTF-16 encoded text.
- `char32_t` stores a UTF-32 code unit and can represent any Unicode code point directly.
- The prefixes `L`, `u`, and `U` create wide, UTF-16, and UTF-32 character literals respectively.
- `sizeof` is used to determine the storage size of each character type.
- The exact size of `wchar_t` depends on the implementation, while `char16_t` and `char32_t` have fixed sizes defined by the C++ standard.
- `return 0;` terminates the program successfully.