What are literals in Java?

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.

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 indicate octal, and prefix 0x indicates hexadecimal when using these number systems for literals. For example −

int decimal = 100;
int octal = 0144;
int hexa = 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 −

Example

"Hello World"
"two
lines"
""This is in quotes""

String and char types of literals can contain any Unicode characters. For example −

char a = '\u0001';
String a = "\u0001";