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

[jbskaggs]

Thank you,

I shall search more.  One of the problems I find is that many of the terms
have multiple meanings for example their meaning in mathmetics does not
always equal the definition in gambas or basic and basic terms do not always
match 
terms in other langauges so that finding meanings in wiki or google makes it
hard- especially when I dont know which one applies.


A good example:

I was trying to find a command that changed the position in the order that
components were drawn-I found that the command .raise did that- but I had
previously thought the command raise meant to "raise the event flag".

English is not the best language to program in- or speak for that matter
because the words have so many different meanings in different contexts.  It
wasn't until I learned  a little Greek in bible college how imprecise
English is unfortunately it is the only language I speak with any
understanding.

JB Skaggs


Jussi Lahtinen wrote:
> 
> 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
>> --
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>>
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