Different whole-number types

In C++, there are at least four different basic whole-number types:

• char: (8 bits) -128 to 127 or 0 to 255
• short: (16 bits) -32768 to 32767 or 0 to 65535
• int: varies by operating system and hardware platform
• long: (32 bits)  -2147483648 to 2147483647 or 0 to 4294967295

(The number of bits and the range of values for each type was gleaned from http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/tut1-2.html.)

There are both signed and unsigned variations on each of the basic types. 

The four types differ primarily in terms of the range of values that they can accommodate and the amount of computer memory required to store instances of the types.