The int type: whole numbers

1. The int type

If you want to store whole number in variables, then you need to use the int type.

The word int is short for Integer , which of course is a good hint that this type lets you store integer numbers.

Variables whose type is int are capable of storing integer numbers ranging from -2 billion to +2 billion. To be more precise, from -2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647.

2. Creating an int variable

The int type is for storing integers. To create a variable in code that can store integer numbers, you need to use a statement like this:

int name;

Where name is the name of the variable. Examples:

int x;

int count;

int currentYear;

The case of the letters matters. That means the commands int color and int Color will declare two different variables.

And the commands Int Color and INT COLOR won't make any sense to the compiler, causing it to report an error. int is a special keyword for the integer type and it must be written in lowercase.

3. Shorthand for creating variables

If you need to create many variables of the same type in the same place in a program, you can use this shorthand notation:

int name1, name2, name3;

Examples:

int x;
int y;
int z;

int x, y, z;

int count;
int totalCount;

int count, totalCount;

int day;
int month;
int year;

int day, month, year;

4. Assigning values

To put a value into an int variable, you need to this statement:

name = value;

Where the value can be any integer expression. Examples:

int a;
a = 5;

int b;
b = 2*1000*1000*1000;

int c;
c = -10000000;

int d;
d = 3000000000;

5. Shorthand for creating and initializing a variable

You can use a single command to create (declare) a variable and assign a value to it. This is what is done most often, since we usually declare a variable when we need to store a value.

Here's what the command looks like:

int name = value;

Examples:

int a = 5;

int b = 2*1000*1000*1000;

int c = -10000000;

int d = 3000000000;

You can also declare several variables in a single line. In this case, the command will look like:

int name1 = value1, name2 = value2, name3 = value3;

Examples:

int a = 5, b = 10, c = a + b;