Welcome to our lesson on Kotlin's basic data types. We'll delve into numbers, booleans, characters, strings, and arrays. Additionally, we'll explore how to declare these data types—either explicitly or implicitly. These fundamentals will empower you to create and manipulate data effectively in your Kotlin programs.

In Kotlin, numbers are categorized by their memory sizes and value ranges. For integral numbers, the most popular types are Int and Long, requiring 4 and 8 bytes of memory, respectively. For numbers with decimal points, we have Float and Double: Float supports approximately seven decimal places, while Double can handle around 15. There are also less popular data types such as Short and Byte, but we will omit them for now.

Let's explore these number types in action:

Kotlin
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1val intNumber: Int = 300 // stores numbers from -2147483648 (-2^31) to 2147483647 (2^31 - 1)
2val longNumber: Long = 100_000_000L // stores numbers from -9223372036854775808 (-2^63) to 9223372036854775807 (2^63 - 1)
3
4/*
5 * The 'F' suffix in '2.5F' explicitly marks the value as a Float. 
6 * This is required because Kotlin defaults to Double for decimals. 
7 * It ensures the compiler adheres to the specified Float type.
8 */
9val floatNumber: Float = 2.5F 
10
11val doubleNumber: Double = 5.5

In long numbers, Kotlin enhances readability through the usage of underscores, as seen in 100_000_000.

The Boolean data type represents truth values as true or false. The Char data type, represented by Char, holds a single character, while String stores sequences of characters. Please note that Chars are defined using single quotes ('), and Strings are defined using double quotes (").

Kotlin
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1val isKotlinFun: Boolean = true
2val letter: Char = 'K'
3val hello: String = "Hello, Kotlin!"

In Kotlin, data types can be declared explicitly by specifying the type, or implicitly, by letting Kotlin's type inference mechanism determine the type. To specify the type of a variable explicitly, use the syntax: val <variableName>: <variableType> = <value>.

For example:

Kotlin
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1val explicitInt: Int = 239 // Explicitly declare data type as Int
2val implicitInt = 239 // Implicitly declare data type as Int
3
4val explicitLong: Long = 3_000_000_000 // Explicitly declare data type as Long
5val implicitLong = 3_000_000_000 // Implicitly declare data type as Long
6val anotherLong = 239L // 239 fits into Int type and Kotlin will infer its type as Int. To specify the Long value explicitly, append the suffix `L` to the value.
7
8val explicitString: String = "Explicit" // Explicitly declare data type as String
9val implicitString = "Implicit" // Kotlin infers type as String

We have traversed the basics of data types in Kotlin, delving into numbers, booleans, characters, and strings. We also explored explicit and implicit type declarations. For the next step, look forward to exciting practice exercises to consolidate your understanding and gain practical exposure. Let's venture deeper into Kotlin!