Kotlin, with its modern language design, simplifies many of the headaches developers face when working with data types. Whether you are developing an Android app, writing a backend service, or exploring Kotlin for the first time, understanding the core data types is essential. In this blog post, we will dive deep into Kotlin’s basic types — how they work, what makes them special, and why choosing the right type can improve performance and code readability.
By the end, you’ll have a strong grasp of Kotlin’s numbers, characters, booleans, and strings, along with practical tips for leveraging these types in real-world coding scenarios.
Numbers in Kotlin: From Byte to Long
Kotlin’s number system is divided into integer and floating-point types, with each category offering different sizes and ranges.
Integer Types: Byte, Short, Int, Long
Integers are whole numbers without any fractional parts (like 42 or -15). Kotlin provides four integer types, and the difference between them lies in how much memory they consume and the range of values they can store.
- Byte: 8-bit size, ranges from -128 to 127
- Short: 16-bit size, ranges from -32,768 to 32,767
