Lecture 2A

Data Types and Variables

Course: Object Oriented Programming (ECOM F213)

13-08-25

Prof. Anita Agrawal

BITS [Link] Goa campus
Quick recap..
• Software objects are conceptually similar to real-world objects:
they too consist of state and related behavior.

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• An object stores its state in fields (variables in some
programming languages) and exposes its behavior through

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methods (functions in some programming languages).

• Methods operate on an object's internal state and serve as the

primary mechanism for object-to-object communication.

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• In this session……..

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• Variable naming rules and conventions
• Basic data types

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• Default values and
• Literals.

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Types of variables
• 4 types:

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• Instance variables

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• Class variables

• Local variables

• Parameters
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Types of variables
• Instance variables ( non-static fields):
• Objects store their individual states in non-static fields

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• Their values are unique to each instance of a class (to
each object, in other words)

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• Example: the currentSpeed of one bicycle is
independent from the currentSpeed of another

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Types of variables
• Class variables (static fields):
• This tells the compiler that there is exactly one copy of

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this variable in existence, regardless of how many times
the class has been instantiated.

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• Example: The same number of legs will apply to all
instances.

static int legs = 4;

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Types of Variables
• Local Variables:

• Used by methods.

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• A method will often store its temporary state in local
variables.

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• Only visible to the methods in which they are
declared; they are not accessible from the rest of the
class.
• Example:
void calculate()
{
int count = 0; Local
variable
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}
Types of Variables
• Parameter Variables:
• Parameters are always classified as "variables" not

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"fields".

• This applies to other parameter-accepting constructs

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as well (such as constructors and exception handlers)

• Example:
void cost_of_the_car (int rupees)
Here, the rupees variable is the parameter to this
method.
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Java Identifiers and syntax for variable
• The syntax for the declaration of a variable is:

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Data type identifier;

“data type” ( one of the primitive types)

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“identifier” is a legal Java identifier

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Legal Java Identifiers
For class, method, variable or label…..
• Alphanumeric characters, A-Z, a-z, digits 0-9, ‘$‘and ‘_‘
(underscore).

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• Reserved Words can’t be used.
• Ex: double abstract = 100; (invalid)

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• The first letter should not be a digit.
• Ex: “1prog” (invalid)

• Are case-sensitive.

• No limit on the length of the identifier but recommended

length of 4 – 15 letters only.
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Primitive Data type
• The Java programming language is statically-typed.

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• A variable's data type determines the values it may
contain, plus the operations that may be performed on it.

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• Primitive types are special data types built into the
language; they are not objects created from a class.

• A primitive type is predefined by the language and is

named by a reserved keyword.

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• There are eight primitives in Java.

• All types have strictly defined range

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 Data
Types
Floating
integer boolean character
Point

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byte float

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short double

int

long

Primitive Types 13
 Primitive Data Types in Java: Integers

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• All of the above are stored as signed two’s complement
numbers

• Java does not support unsigned positive only integers

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 Primitive data types in Java: floating-
point numbers
Also known as real numbers

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• Two kinds of floating point types to store: –

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• float type (Single precision)

• double Type (Double precision)

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Primitive Data Types in Java: floating
point numbers
• IEEE 754 single-precision binary floating-point format:
• Sign bit: 1 bit

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• Exponent width: 8 bits
• Significand precision: 23 bits (explicitly stored)

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Primitive Data Types in Java: floating
point numbers
• IEEE 754 double-precision binary floating-point format:
• Sign bit: 1 bit

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• Exponent width: 11 bits
• Significand precision: 52 bits (explicitly stored)

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Java – C: A comparison
• Java is a strongly typed language.

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• C is a weakly typed language

Example: (In C…)

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int main()
{
int i= 3.0;
printf("Value of i is %d", i);
return 0;
}
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Output: Value of i is 3
• Example: (In Java)
class example
{
public static void main(String args[])
{

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int i= 3.0;
[Link]("value of i: "+i);
}

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}
Type mismatch throws an error.
error: incompatible types:
Possible lossy conversion from double to
int
int i=3.0;

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Char type
• Java uses Unicode to represent characters.

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• Unicode defines fully international character set: English,
Latin, Greek, and many more

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• The minimum value of char data type is '\u0000' (0). The
maximum value of char data type is '\uffff'.

• It supports ASCII values also 0-255

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Boolean Type
• Takes two values- true and false

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• Returned by relational operators and used by conditional
expressions

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String type
• In addition to the 8 primitive data types, the Java
programming language provides special support for

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character strings via the [Link] class.

• It is technically not a primitive data type.

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• String objects are immutable.

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 Literals

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Literals
• A literal is the source code representation of a fixed
value

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• They are represented directly in your code without
requiring computation.

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• it's possible to assign a literal to a variable of a primitive
type.

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Literals-Integer representation
• An integer literal is of type long if it ends with the letter L
or l; otherwise it is of type int

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• Integer literals can be expressed by the following number
systems:

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• Decimal
• Octal
• Hexadecimal
• Binary

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Syntax to be followed for other number
systems
• int decval: 1238 //number in decimal

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• int Octval: 01237 //number in octal

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• int Hexval: 0x12ABC //number in hexadec

• int binval: 0b10110 //number in binary

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Literals: Floating point
• Floating-point literals are written with a decimal point.
• Can be represented as
–Standard Notation: 3.1234, 56.778

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–Scientific Notation: 6.022E23, 1234E-13, 23e+100

• Floating-point literals are by default double

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• For example, 5.0 is considered a double value, not a float value.

• To store a literal as float, we have to append F or f to the constant

• float f = 2.335; // Error

• float f = 2.335f;// Correct way

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Boolean literals
• Used to represent logical values: true and false

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• True and False do not convert into numerical representation

• True≠1 and False≠0 (Unlike C/C++)

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• True and False can be only assigned to boolean variable

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Character Literals
• Represented by enclosing in single quotes
• Example : char c = ‘A’;

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• The bit values can be converted into integers and
manipulated with integer operators, by enclosing in ‘ ‘.

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• Example : char c = ‘A’;
c++; // c now contains ‘B’
• Example:
char letter = '\u0065';

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Escape Sequences in Java

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There are only 8 escape sequences in Java. You cannot define 30
your own character escape sequences
String Literals
• Strings are implemented as objects rather than an array
of characters

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• Sequence of characters enclosed in a pair of double
quotes.
• Example: “Hello World!”

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