1. Characters In Java single characters are represented using the data type char. Character constants are written as symbols enclosed in single quotes, for example, 'a', 'X', and '5'. To represent characters in computer, U. S. computer manufacturers devised several schemes for encoding characters as integers. One coding scheme widely used today is ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange).

2. ASCII Table For example, character 'O' is 79 (row value 70 + col value 9 = 79). O 9 70

3. Character Translation Declaration and initialization char ch1, ch2 = ‘X’; Type conversion between int and char. System.out.println("ASCII of X is " + (int) ' X ' ); System.out.println("Char 88 is " + (char)88 ); Erf … out to reality ASCIITranslate.java

4. Character Comparison This comparison returns true because ASCII value of 'A' is 65 while that of 'c' is 99. ‘A’ < ‘c’ Spling … out to reality CharOrder.java

5. Special Characters These are also known as “escape characters” Written using a \ prefix \t \n \b \g \’ \\ Spling … out to reality EscapeCharacters.java

6. The Character Class The Character class in the java.lang package includes methods for manipulating character values. Example, use isLetter to check if a character is a-z or A-Z Zzzznicka … out to reality … CharGames.java Zzzznicka … out to reality … CharGamesCompressed.java

7. Unicode To accommodate the character symbols of non- English languages, the Unicode Consortium established the Unicode Worldwide Character Standard, commonly known as Unicode.