Are there any real life uses for the Java byte primitive type?

Question

For some inexplicable reason the byte primitive type is signed in Java. This mean that valid values are -128..127 instead of the usual 0..255 range representin

Answer 1

The size of byte is 8 bits. The size of byte helps in processing input and output while performing functions like writing to a file or reading from a file. Consider a scenario in which you want to read an input from the keyboard or from any file. If you use the "byte" data structure, you know that you are receiving one character at a time since the size is 8 bits. So every time you receive an input stream, you know that you are actually receiving one character at a time.