C Character Size: Bytes Explained

In C language, a character (char type) usually occupies 1 byte of memory space. Each byte consists of 8 bits, which can represent 256 different values (0 to 255). The char type in C language is designed to be able to represent all characters in the ASCII character set, which includes common English letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and control characters.

In most computer systems, a byte consists of 8 bits, so a character requires one byte of storage. When we declare a character variable, such as char ch;, this variable ch will occupy 1 byte of memory space. We can assign characters to ch, such as ch = ‘A’;, where ‘A’ is actually an ASCII character with an ASCII code value of 65, which will be stored in the 1 byte of memory space occupied by the ch variable.

In most modern computer systems, characters in C language are typically stored in one byte to represent various characters and symbols.