char (C# Reference)

The char keyword is used to declare an instance of the System.Char structure that the .NET Framework uses to represent a Unicode character. The value of a Char object is a 16-bit numeric (ordinal) value.

Unicode characters are used to represent most of the written languages throughout the world.

Type	Range	Size	.NET Framework type
char	U+0000 to U+FFFF	Unicode 16-bit character	System.Char

Literals

Constants of the char type can be written as character literals, hexadecimal escape sequence, or Unicode representation. You can also cast the integral character codes. In the following example four char variables are initialized with the same character X:

char[] chars = new char[4];

chars[0] = 'X';        // Character literal
chars[1] = '\x0058';   // Hexadecimal
chars[2] = (char)88;   // Cast from integral type
chars[3] = '\u0058';   // Unicode 

foreach (char c in chars)
{
    Console.Write(c + " ");
}
// Output: X X X X

Conversions

A char can be implicitly converted to ushort, int, uint, long, ulong, float, double, or decimal. However, there are no implicit conversions from other types to the char type.

The System.Char type provides several static methods for working with char values.

C# Language Specification

For more information, see the C# Language Specification. The language specification is the definitive source for C# syntax and usage.

See Also

Reference

C# Keywords

Integral Types Table (C# Reference)

Built-In Types Table (C# Reference)

Implicit Numeric Conversions Table (C# Reference)

Explicit Numeric Conversions Table (C# Reference)

Nullable Types (C# Programming Guide)

Char

Concepts

C# Programming Guide

Other Resources

C# Reference

Strings (C# Programming Guide)