In Java, short is a primitive data type used to represent integer values within a specific range. The short keyword can be used to declare a variable of type short.
The short data type occupies 2 bytes of memory and can hold integer values from -32,768 to 32,767. It is useful when memory is limited or when we need to store large arrays of data.
Here is an example of using the short keyword:
short x = 500;
short y = -1000;
In this example, we declare two variables x and y of type short and initialize them with values of 500 and -1000, respectively.
We can also use the short data type with arithmetic operators:
short a = 100;
short b = 200;
short c = (short)(a + b); // c will be 300
In this example, we add the values of a and b and store the result in variable c. Since the result of the addition is an int, we need to cast it back to a short before storing it in c.
It's important to note that because short is a smaller data type than int, it can be less efficient to use short instead of int on some systems. It's generally recommended to use short when memory usage is a concern or when dealing with large arrays of data that will be stored in memory.
