What do you understand by primitive and non-primitive data types? Give an example of each.

A primitive data type is predefined by the Java language and is named by a reserved word. Java defines 8 primitive data types — byte, short, int, long, float, double, char, boolean.

For example,

int a = 10;

Here, data type of variable a is the primitive type int.

A number of primitive data types are used together to represent a non-primitive data type. Array, Class and interface are examples of non-primitive data type.

For example,

int arr[] = {1, 2, 3, 4};

Here, data type of variable arr is an int array which is a reference type.