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Trail: Learning the Java Language
Lesson: Language Basics

## Summary of Variables

> When you declare a variable, you explicitly set the variable's name and data type. The Java programming language has two categories of data types: primitive and reference. This table shows all of the primitive data types:

> Keyword | Description | Size/Format
> (integers)
> `byte` | Byte-length integer | 8-bit two's complement
> `short` | Short integer | 16-bit two's complement
> `int` | Integer | 32-bit two's complement
> `long` | Long integer | 64-bit two's complement
> (real numbers)
> `float` | Single-precision floating point | 32-bit IEEE 754
> `double` | Double-precision floating point | 64-bit IEEE 754
> (other types)
> `char` | A single character | 16-bit Unicode character
> `boolean` | A boolean value (`true` or `false`) | true or false

> Reference types are arrays, or names of classes or interfaces.

> The variable declaration also implicitly sets the variable's scope, and you may optionally provide an initial value for the variable within its declaration. The value of a final variable may not change after it's initialized.

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