Characters are represented by the type Char.
Character literals go in single quotes: '1'.
On the JVM, a character stored as primitive type:
char, represents a 16-bit Unicode character.
{type="note"}
Special characters start from an escaping backslash \.
The following escape sequences are supported:
\t– tab\b– backspace\n– new line (LF)\r– carriage return (CR)\'– single quotation mark\"– double quotation mark\\– backslash\$– dollar sign
To encode any other character, use the Unicode escape sequence syntax: '\uFF00'.
fun main() {
//sampleStart
val aChar: Char = 'a'
println(aChar)
println('\n') // Prints an extra newline character
println('\uFF00')
//sampleEnd
}{kotlin-runnable="true" kotlin-min-compiler-version="1.3"}
If a value of character variable is a digit, you can explicitly convert it to an Int number using the digitToInt() function.
On the JVM, characters are boxed in Java classes when a nullable reference is needed, just like with numbers. Identity is not preserved by the boxing operation.
{type="note"}