What is an unsigned char?

Question

In C/C++, what an unsigned char is used for? How is it different from a regular char?

Answer 1

An unsigned char is an unsigned byte value (0 to 255). You may be thinking of char in terms of being a "character" but it is really a numerical value. The regular char is signed, so you have 128 values, and these values map to characters using ASCII encoding. But in either case, what you are storing in memory is a byte value.