Bytes and chunks of data
The smallest data value in C is a bit. However, bit operations tend to be very expensive and not all that common for most computer problems. In this book, we will not go into bit operations. If you find you need to delve deeper into bit operations in C, please refer to the annotated bibliography in the Appendix for texts that treat this subject more fully.
The basic data value in C is a byte or a sequence of 8 bits. The set of values a byte can represent is 256 or 28 values. These values range from 0 to 255 or 28–1. 0 is a value that must be represented in the set of 256 values; we can't leave that value out. A byte can either represent a positive integer ranging from 0 to 255, or 28–1, or a negative integer ranging from -128 to 127. In either case, there are only 256 unique combinations of 1s and 0s.
While, in our daily routine, most humans don't ordinarily count this high, for a computer, this is a very narrow range of values...
