Variables, Data Types and

Constants
 Variable = Portion of memory to which we can

store a value and from which we can later retrieve

that value.
a = 5;
b = 2;
c = a + 1;
result = c – b;
 Variable
 is named storage location in the computer’s memory for

holding a piece of data

• Provides an “interface” to RAM

 Information stored in variables is actually stored in RAM

 Allow you to store and work with data in the computer’s

memory
 Named so, because their value(the data they contain) can
change while the program is running
 Identifier
 Program defined name that represents some element
of a program e.g a variable name
 Should give an indication of what the variables are
used for or should reflect their purpose
e.g. number ( in the previous figure)
 Legal(Valid) Identifiers
 The first character must be one of the letters a
through z, A through Z, or an underscore character
(_).
 After the first character you may use the letters a
through z or A through Z, the digits 0 through 9, or
underscores.
 Uppercase and lowercase characters are distinct. This
means ItemsOrdered is not the same as
itemsordered.
 Which are legal identifiers?
 dayOfWeek

Legal
 3dGraph

Illegal. Variable names cannot begin with a digit.

 _employee_num

Legal
 June1997

Legal
 Mixture#3

Illegal. Variable names may only use letters, digits and

 Valid Identifiers
 White spaces are not allowed in identifiers
 But can contain mix of upper case and lower case
letters
 The convention is to capitalize the first letter of each
subsequent work in identifier leaving all others in
small letters
e.g. itemsOrdered
 Variable names are case sensetive

e.g. itemsOrdered is not the same as itemsordered

 Valid Identifiers
 Another rule is that, when inventing your own
identifiers they can not match any keyword of the
C++ language nor your compiler specific ones
which are reserved keywords
 Data types
 In programming, there are generally two types of
data: numbers such as 3, and characters such as
the letter ‘A’
 Numbers are used to perform mathematical
operations while
 Characters are used to print information to the screen
 In programming, the type of data that will be stored
in the variable must be known
 Data Types
 Numerical data types can be either integer or
whole numbers or real or floating point numbers
E.g. Integers or whole numbers
5, 7, -129 and 32154
And real or floating point numbers
e.g. 3.14159, 6.7, 1.0002
 Data Types
 The computer has to know what kind of data we want
to store in them because it doesn’t occupy the same
amount of memory to store a simple number than to
store a single letter or a large number
 Memory in computers is organized in bytes
• Byte
 Minimum amount of memory that we can manage
in C++
 Can store relatively small amount of data i.e. one
single character or a small integer(generally an
integer between 0 and 255)
 In addition, the computer can manipulate more
complex data types that come from grouping several
bytes, such as long numbers or non-integer data
 Data Types
 Signed types can represent both positive and
negative values, whereas unsigned types can only
represent positive values (and zero)
 Considerations for selecting
numeric data type
 The largest and smallest numbers that may be
stored in the variable
 Whether the variable stores signed numbers
 The number of decimal places of precision the
variable has
 How much memory the variable uses
 Guarantees
Size of integer is dependent on the type of system you
are using but these are guaranteed to be satisfied:
 Integers are at least as big as short integers.
 Long integers are at least as big as integers.
 Unsigned short integers are the same size as short
integers.
 Unsigned integers are the same size as integers.
 Unsigned long integers are the same size as long
integers.
 Char Data Type
 One byte integer data type
 Char variable can hold a single character, but strictly
speaking it is an integer data type
Strings
 Allow a series of characters to be stored in consecutive
memory locations
 Can be virtually any length
 The program knows how long a string is by appending
an extra byte to the end of string constants and
 In this byte the number 0 is stored called null
terminator or null character
 e.g.
 Variable Declaration
 Tells the compiler the variable’s name and the type
of data it will hold
 The syntax for variable declaration is to write the
specifier of the desired data type (like int, bool,
float...) followed by a valid variable identifier
e.g. int a;
float myNumber;
 Once declared the variables can be used within the
rest of the program(must be declared before we use
them)
 Variable declaration
 To declare more than one variable of the same type,
it can be done in a single statement by separating
their identifiers with commas
e.g. Can be written as

 When declaring a variable, its value is initially

undetermined
 Makes a variable to store a concrete value at the
same moment that it is declared
Initialization of Variables
 Assignment(=)
number = 5;
 The = operator copies the value on its right to the variable names
on its left
 The variable name must always appear on the left

 Which of the following are legal C++ assignment statements?

a = 7;

legal

7 = a;

Illegal, because the variable name must be on the left

7 = 7;

Illegal, because the left hand signed of the assignment operator is not
a variable
 Constant
 Unlike a variable, it is a data item whose value cannot
change during the program’s execution
 Includes literals, defined constants and declared
constants

Literals
 Are Used to express particular values within the
source code of a program
 e.G a = 5;
 5 is a literal constant
 Literals like variables are considered to have a
specific data type
 Literals can be Integer Numerals, floating point
numbers, character and string literals
 Literals
Integer Numerals
 Numerical constants that identify integer decimal
values
 C++ allows use of octal(base 8) and
hexadecimal(base 16) numbers as string literals
e.g.
 Literals
Integer Literals
 are by default of type Int
 Can be forced to be unsigned by appending the u
character to it, or long by appending l
e.g. 75 //int
75u //unsinged int
75l //long
75ul //unsigned long
 Literals
Floating point numbers
 Express numbers with decimals and or exponents
e.g.

 Default value of floating point literals is double

 To explicitly express a float or long double numeric
literal, you can use the f or l suffixes
E.g.
 Literals
Character and string literals

 The first two are single character constants and the

following two are several characters
 To represent a single character, we enclose it between
single quotes(‘) and to express a string(which
generally consists of more than one character), we
enclose it in double quotes(“)
 Literals
String literals
 can extend to more than a single line of code by
putting a backslash sign (\) at the end of each
unfinished line.
e.g.

 Can concatenate several string constants by

separating them by one or several blank spaces
e.g. "this forms" "a single" "string" "of characters"
 Escape codes
 Special characters, that are difficult or impossible to express
otherwise in the source code of a program, like newline(\n) or
tab(\t)

Boolean literals
 There are two valid boolean values: true and false
 Can be expressed in C++ as values of type bool by using the
boolean literals true and false
 Defined Constants
 can define your own names for constants that you use very
often without having to resort to memory-consuming
variables, simply by using the #define preprocessor
directive

e.g.
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
#define PI 3.14159
#define NEWLINE ‘\n’
Int main()
{
cout<<PI<<NEWLINE;
return 0;
}

 When the compiler preprocessor encounters the #define directive, it

literally replaces any occurrence of the identifier by the code to which
they have been defined
 Declared Constants(const)
 With const prefix, you can declare constants with a specific
type in the same way as you would do with a variable

 The const qualifier specifies that the value of

the variable will not change throughout the program

 Why bother with using a variable when we can simply place
the literal constant in its place everywhere in the code?
 Exercise.
List all the variables and constants that appear in the following
program.
// This program uses variables and constants
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{ int little;
int big;
little = 2;
big = 2000;
cout << "The little number is " << little << endl;
cout << "The big number is " << big << endl;
return 0;
}