# Literals in Java programming

Java 8Object Oriented ProgrammingProgramming

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. For 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\nlines"
"\"This is in quotes\""


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

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


Java language supports few special escape sequences for String and char literals as well. They are −

Sr.No. Notation & Character represented
1

\n

Newline (0x0a)

2

\r

Carriage return (0x0d)

3

\f

Formfeed (0x0c)

4

\b

Backspace (0x08)

5

\s

Space (0x20)

6

\t

tab

7

\"

Double quote

8

\'

Single quote

9

\\

backslash

10

\

ddd Octal character (ddd)

11

\uxxxx