Exploring constants
We use variables to hold values that are computed or can change over their lifetime, such as counters. However, we often have values that we don't ever want to change during their lifetimes. These are constants and can be defined in several ways for different uses.
Literal constants
Consider the following literal character sequences:
65
'A'
8.0f
131072.0
Each of these has an internal byte stream of 0100 0001
. However, because of the punctuation surrounding these values, the compiler can infer what types they have from their context:
65 --> int
'A' --> unsigned char
8.0f --> float
131072.0 --> double
These values are typed into our source code and their...