C# char type

last modified September 6, 2023

In this article we show how to work with a char type in C#.

A string in C# is a sequence of a sequence of UTF-16 code units. The System.Char type represents a character as a UTF-16 code unit.

The char keyword is an alias for System.Char type.

.NET uses the Char structure to represent Unicode code points by using UTF-16 encoding. The value of a Char object is its 16-bit numeric (ordinal) value.

        type
        range
        size
        .NET type
    


    
        char
        U+0000 to U+FFFF
        16 bit
        System.Char

The default value of the char type is \0, (U+0000).

**Note: **A char is not necessarily equivalent to a single Unicode character. In some cases, multiple 16-bit code units are used to represent a single Unicode character.

In C# code, a character can be represented by

- a character literal

a Unicode escape sequence -- \u followed by the four-symbol hexadecimal 
    representation of a character code
a hexadecimal escape sequence -- \x followed by the hexadecimal 
    representation of a character code

C# char simple exampe

The following is a simple example with a char type.

Program.cs

char a = ‘f’; Console.WriteLine(a);

Console.WriteLine(a.GetType()); Console.WriteLine(typeof(char));

Console.WriteLine((int)char.MaxValue); Console.WriteLine((int)char.MinValue);

We define a char variable and show its type and min and max possible values.

$ dotnet run f System.Char System.Char 65535 0

C# char literals & escape sequences

Char values are enclosed in single quotes.

Program.cs

char c = ‘л’; Console.WriteLine(c);

char c2 = ‘\u043B’; Console.WriteLine(c2);

char c3 = ‘\x43b’; Console.WriteLine(c3);

The example represents three chars with a character literal, a Unicode escape sequence, and a hexadecimal escape sequence.

$ dotnet run л л л

C# array of chars

In order to convert a char array to a string, we simply pass the array to its constructor. To convert the string to a char array, we call the ToCharArray method.

Program.cs

char[] vals = { ‘a’, ’n’, ’ ‘, ‘o’, ’l’, ’d’, ’ ‘, ‘f’, ‘a’, ’l’, ‘c’, ‘o’, ’n’ }; Console.WriteLine(vals); Console.WriteLine(vals.GetType());

Console.WriteLine("————————");

string msg = new(vals); Console.WriteLine(msg); Console.WriteLine(msg.GetType());

Console.WriteLine("————————");

char[] vals2 = msg.ToCharArray(); Console.WriteLine(vals2); Console.WriteLine(vals2.GetType());

In the example we convert a char array into a string and the string back into a char array.

$ dotnet run an old falcon System.Char[]

an old falcon System.String

an old falcon System.Char[]

C# iterate over string elements

A C# string is a sequence of char elements.

Program.cs

string msg = “an old falcon”;

foreach (var e in msg) { Console.Write($"{e} “); }

Console.WriteLine("\n—————————–”);

foreach (var e in msg) { byte b = (byte)e; Console.Write($"{b} “); }

Console.WriteLine("\n—————————–”);

byte[] data = { 97, 110, 32, 111, 108, 100, 32, 102, 97, 108, 99, 111, 110 };

foreach (var e in data) { char c = (char)e; Console.Write($"{c} “); }

Console.WriteLine();

The example loops over a string and outputs each char separately. It converts the string into byte values and then byte values into a string.

foreach (var e in msg) { Console.Write($"{e} “); }

In a foreach loop, we go over the elements of the string.

foreach (var e in msg) { byte b = (byte)e; Console.Write($"{b} “); }

We loop over the string and cast each element into a byte value.

byte[] data = { 97, 110, 32, 111, 108, 100, 32, 102, 97, 108, 99, 111, 110 };

foreach (var e in data) { char c = (char)e; Console.Write($"{c} “); }

We define an array of bytes. We loop over the array and cast each byte into a char.

$ dotnet run a n o l d f a l c o n

97 110 32 111 108 100 32 102 97 108 99 111 110

a n o l d f a l c o n

C# char.GetUnicodeCategory

The char.GetUnicodeCategory categorizes a specified Unicode character into a group identified by one of the UnicodeCategory values.

Program.cs

string msg = “There are 22 apples in the basket.”;

foreach (var e in msg) { var category = char.GetUnicodeCategory(e); Console.WriteLine($"{e} - {category}”);

}

In the example, we show the Unicode category for each of the given string elements.

$ dotnet run T - UppercaseLetter h - LowercaseLetter e - LowercaseLetter r - LowercaseLetter e - LowercaseLetter

• SpaceSeparator a - LowercaseLetter r - LowercaseLetter e - LowercaseLetter
• SpaceSeparator 2 - DecimalDigitNumber 2 - DecimalDigitNumber
• SpaceSeparator a - LowercaseLetter p - LowercaseLetter p - LowercaseLetter l - LowercaseLetter e - LowercaseLetter s - LowercaseLetter
• SpaceSeparator i - LowercaseLetter n - LowercaseLetter
• SpaceSeparator t - LowercaseLetter h - LowercaseLetter e - LowercaseLetter
• SpaceSeparator b - LowercaseLetter a - LowercaseLetter s - LowercaseLetter k - LowercaseLetter e - LowercaseLetter t - LowercaseLetter . - OtherPunctuation

Source

char type

In this article we worked with char type in C# language.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar, and I am a passionate programmer with extensive programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. To date, I have authored over 1,400 articles and 8 e-books. I possess more than ten years of experience in teaching programming.

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