A literal is a source code representation of a fixed value. They are represented directly in the code without any computation.
Literals can be assigned to any primitive type variable. For example:
byte a = 68; char a = 'A' |
byte, int, long, and short can be expressed in decimal(base 10),hexadecimal(base 16) or octal(base 8) number systems as well.
Prefix 0 is used to indicates octal and prefix 0x indicates hexadecimal when using these number systems for literals. For example:
int decimal = 100; int octal = 0144; inthexa = 0x64; |
String literals in Java are specified like they are in most other languages by enclosing a sequence of characters between a pair of double quotes. Examples of string literals are:
"Hello World" "two\nlines" "\"This is in quotes\"" |
String and char types of literals can contain any Unicode characters. For example:
char a = '\u0001'; String a = "\u0001"; |
Java language supports few special escape sequences for String and char literals as well. They are:
Notation |
Character represented |
|
\n |
Newline (0x0a) |
|
\r |
Carriage return (0x0d) |
|
\f |
Formfeed (0x0c) |
|
\b |
Backspace (0x08) |
|
\s |
Space (0x20) |
|
\t |
tab |
|
\" |
Double quote |
|
\' |
Single quote |
|
\\ |
backslash |
|
\ddd |
Octal character (ddd) |
|
\uxxxx |
Hexadecimal UNICODE character (xxxx) |
