The C++ programming language provides us with the ability to work with many different types of data. It may seem a bit cumbersome at first and it is only natural to ask why we even need data types in the first place. In this article, we will talk about data types and try to understand why not all data is the same.

What is data?

The main goal of computer programs is to make the life of a human easy. This is achieved by writing programs that will do some tasks automatically for you, instead of you or some other human doing it themselves. So the basic idea of creating any computer program is to create something that can replicate what a human does, but a lot faster and more efficiently.

In order for a computer program to mimic the real world, it needs the ability to understand, store, retrieve and manipulate data just like we humans do. We will be able to build more sophisticated and complex computer programs if our programming language provides us with the ability to work with data easily. For computers, however, all data is the same. it is just a sequence of 0s and 1s for them.

What are types?

The data we work with in our daily lives can be categorised into different types. And each type has a certain set of rules governing its behaviour and interaction with other types. Let's take an example. When someone asks you your name, you write it in alphabets like "Shikhar Srivastava". When someone asks you how many movies have you watched in the past year, you might say 10. And when someone asks you what is the length of your hair, you might say "2.5 cm".

So, would it make sense if someone asks you to add 20 to your name? 

"Shikhar Srivastava" + 20 = ?

It is really absurd, the reason being that your name and a number are different types of data. 20 is a number and your name is a set of alphabets. They cannot be mixed. It would have made much more sense if someone had asked you -

• "Shikhar Srivastava" + " how are you?" = "Shikhar Srivastava how are you?
• 20 + 30 = 50

Now it makes much more sense. This clearly proves that the data around us is not all the same, it has different types. If you think more, you might be able to come up with all the different types of data around you.

Data types in C++

Just like the real world, computer programs must also be able to differentiate between different types of data which they will manipulate so that they don't mix our names and the number of movies we watched. This is achieved in programming languages like C++ by using the concept of data types.

Primitive Data Types

The inbuilt data types that come together with C++. These are the most fundamental data types that cannot be broken down into any other data types like numbers, characters, etc.

User Defined Data Types

These are custom data types created by users according to their needs. They are generally high-level data types that are created by mixing one or more primitive or user-defined data types like struct, class, etc