[Gambas-user] In Plain English- A definition of the Datatypes please?

[Jussi Lahtinen]

Hi!
For me, because of my experience, documentation of datatypes is self evident.
I think you should be more precise with your question.
What you don't understand?

Short, integer and long are pretty much all same thing, but they can
hold different maximum
(and minimum [negative]) values. Short, integer and long can contain
only whole number, so
example 3.1415 cannot be stored to integer type variable.

Byte is like above, but it can't contain negative values.
Byte is also used as size unit, because it always means 8 bit (bit
means one state, which
can be 1 or 0 [ see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_numeral_system ]).

So, if you need to store value of Pi, you need float type of variable.
These are single and float. They are different not only for maximum
values, but with
accuracy to describe given value. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point .

Rest are basically just different amount of bits too... but you need
more deep understanding
of computers. For this moment I can't figure how to explain concepts
like pointers with
simple terms. You must study. Wikipedia and google is your friend.

Hope that helps!


Jussi



On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 08:10, jbskaggs <jbskaggs at ...1871...> wrote:
>
> Earlier this week I was given an excellent definition oh Hungarian Convetion
> naming ie the h in hObjects.
>
> Could someone either point me to a resource in plain English or explain to
> me in plain English the Datatypes?
>
> Integer
> Long
> Short
> Array
> etc...
>
> this is what I found on the documentation:
>
> Datatype        Description     Default value   Size in memory
> Boolean         True or false.  FALSE   1 byte
> Byte    0...255         0       1 byte
> Short   -32.768...+32.767       0       2 bytes
> Integer         -2.147.483.648...+2.147.483.647         0       4 bytes
> Long    -9.223.372.036.854.775.808...+9.223.372.036.854.775.807         0       8 bytes
> Single  Like the float datatype in C.   0.0     4 bytes
> Float   Like the double datatype in C.  0.0     8 bytes
> Date    Date and time, each stored in an integer.       NULL    8 bytes
> String  A variable length string of characters.         NULL    4 bytes
> Variant         Any datatype.   NULL    12 bytes
> Object  Anonymous reference to any object.      NULL    4 bytes
> Pointer         A memory address.       0       4 bytes on 32 bits systems,
> 8 bytes on 64 bits systems.
>
> For a novice like me I have made assumptions for the past year that turned
> out to be wrong and I would like to make sure I grasp what this is saying
> and not assume I do.
>
> Thanks
> JB
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/In-Plain-English--A-definition-of-the-Datatypes-please--tp22983213p22983213.html
> Sent from the gambas-user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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