Why 'aa' == 24929 ?

Question

cout << 'a'; //output "a"
cout << 'aa'; //output "24929"

Who can explain why?
Where in the C++ standard It's described?

I don't understand...

Answer 1

@SUPER_S Sorry for late.
This is the reason:
The int corresponding to a single 'a' is 97. Its binary 8-bit rappresentation is 01100001 .
When printing 'aa' you are concatenating twice the binary rappresentation. So it becomes a 16-bit 0110000101100001.
And the corresponding decimal number to that binary is 24929.

Answer 2

@Marco Bimbati
Thank you. It's a good explanation!

Answer 3

@Marco Bimbati
I know about the cast to int. And I know how to make this code to display the "aa".
But I don't understand how the compiler gets from 'aa' number 24929 (just single quotes)

Answer 4

When using single quotes, the value inside them is implicitly cast to integer, except when you put a single character inside them.
That's because single quotes are used to identify a char type variable.
If you want to output strings, use double quotes.
cout << "aa" //output "aa"