Arizona State University (ASU) CSE100 Principles of Programming with C++ Midterm 1 Practice Exam

The use of the char data type in C++ is specifically designed for storing a single character. Characters in C++ are defined using single quotes, such as 'a' or '1'. The char type is a fundamental data type that typically occupies one byte of memory and can represent a wide range of characters, including letters, digits, punctuation marks, and control characters from the ASCII table.

In contrast, the int data type is intended for storing integer values and would not be suitable for representing a single character. The float data type is used for storing floating-point numbers (decimals) and is also not appropriate for characters. Finally, the string data type is intended for holding sequences of characters (i.e., strings of text) rather than individual characters. While you could use a string to represent a single character, it is more efficient and semantically correct to use char for this particular purpose.