Numeric Literals in Java 7 and in C#

In both Java and C#, it’s quite easy to express integer numerical literals. You can use both decimal and hexadecimal base to represent the value. Only for the hexadecimal base, you need to prefix the value with 0x. For decimal base values that exceed 2^31-1, you need to provide a suffix (typically L) specifying this fact so the compiler will treat it like a long integer value. C# also provides unsigned long values (U prefix). In both languages, the casing of the suffix does not matter.

Java (notice, there are no unsigned primitives in Java)

int i1 = 23; // integer, decimal
int h1 = 0x17; // integer, hexadecimal
long i2 = 12345678900L; // long integer (64 bit signed integer)

C#

int i1 = 23;
int h1 = 0x17;
ulong u1 = 12345678900U;
long i2 = 12345678900L;

As you might have read in Beginning Java for .NET developers in slide 14, beginning in Java 7 you can also use two more features that are not present in C# (at least at the time of this writing).

Binary base

int b1 = 0b11001010;

Underscores in literals (no matter which base)

int b1 = 0b1100_1010;
long myCardNumber = 2315_2432_2111_1110;
int thousandsSeparated = 123_456_000;

The restrictions on the underscore placing is that you may not place it at the beginning of the value (prefix) or at the end (suffix). Also, for non-integer literals, you may not place it adjacent to the decimal separator.

For floating-point literals, you must use the dot as decimal separator (if you need to specify a fraction, if not, you’re not required). You must use F for float-single-precision (32 bit) and D for float-double-precision (64 bit). Moreover in C#, you also have the M suffix corresponding to the decimal (128 bit) value type.

C#

float x1 = 0.001F;
double x2 = 12.33D;
decimal x3 = 111.2M;
float x4 = 33F;

Java

float f1 = 0.001F;
double f2 = 12.31D;
float f3 = 123F;