Contents - Cultural View

Comparison of Java and C Sharp 63
The primitive types of Java are special and could not have been defined using the language itself. They also do not
share a common ancestor with reference types.
Simple/primitive types
Both languages support a number built-in types which are copied and passed by value rather than by reference. Java
calls these types primitive types, while they are called simple types in C#. The simple/primitive types typically have
native support from the underlying processor architecture.
C# has a few more primitive types than Java, due to the fact that it supports unsigned as well as signed integer types,
and a decimal type for decimal floating-point calculations.
Java lacks the unsigned types. In particular, Java lacks a primitive type for an unsigned byte. The Java byte type is
signed, while the C# byte is unsigned and sbyte is signed.
Both languages feature a native char (character) datatype as a simple type. Although the Java char type can used
with bitwise operators, this is actually accomplished by promoting the char to an integer before the operation.
C# has a type for high-precision (28 decimal digits) decimal arithmetic (based on the IEEE 754 Decimal128 format)
for e.g. financial and monetary application. While Java lacks such a built-in type, the Java library does feature an
arbitrary precision decimal type. This is not considered a language type and it does not support the usual arithmetic
operators; rather it is a reference type which must be manipulated using the type methods. See more on arbitrary
size/precision numbers below.
The C# primitive/simple types implement a number of interfaces and consequently offer a number of methods
directly on instances of the types - even on the literals. The C# type names are also merely aliases for Common
Language Runtime types. The C# Long type is exactly the same type as the long type; the only difference is that the
former is the canonical .NET name while the latter is in C# alias for it.
Java does not offer methods directly on the primitive types. Instead methods which operate on the primitive values
are offered through companion wrapper classes. A fixed set of such wrapper classes exist each of which wraps on of
the fixed set of primitive types. As an example, the Java Long type is a reference type which wraps the primitive
long type. They are not the same type, however.
The following table summarizes the corresponding simple/primitive types of the languages:
C# alias .NET CLR type Width (bits) Range (apx.) Java type Java wrapper
sbyte SByte 8 -128 to 127 byte Byte
byte Byte
8 0 to 255 Not
available
Not available
short Int16 16 -32768 to 32767 short Short
ushort UInt16
16 0 to 65535 Not
available
Not available
int Int32 32 -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 int Integer
uint UInt32
long Int64
ulong UInt64
32 0 to 4,294,967,295 Not
64 -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to
9,223,372,036,854,775,807
available
64 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 Not
Not available
long Long
available
Not available
float Single 32 -3.402823e38 to 3.402823e38 float Float
double Double 64 -1.79769313486232e308 to 1.79769313486232e308 double Double