literálja

Literálja is a term used in programming and computer science to refer to a fixed value written directly into the source code of a program. Unlike variables, which can change their value during program execution, literals have a constant value that is predetermined by the programmer.

Literals can represent various data types. For example, numeric literals include integers like 10, 255, or -5, and floating-point numbers such as 3.14 or 0.001. String literals are sequences of characters enclosed in quotes, like "hello world" or 'example'. Boolean literals represent truth values, typically true and false. Character literals are single characters enclosed in single quotes, such as 'a' or '$'.

The primary purpose of literals is to provide concrete values for operations, initializations, or comparisons within a program. For instance, in the expression `x = 10 + 5;`, both `10` and `5` are integer literals. Similarly, in `print("Welcome!");`, `"Welcome!"` is a string literal. The compiler or interpreter directly embeds these literal values into the executable code, making them readily available for use without requiring further computation or retrieval from memory. Understanding literals is fundamental to writing and comprehending code across most programming languages.