Data Types

gram consists of two parts: data and operations on that data. Computers are essentially simple devices and can only represent very simple information. All complex information must be constructed from these basic data types, which can be loosely described as numbers, Booleans, characters, arrays, and structures. In some languages, such as ActionScript, characters are replaced with "strings." In object-oriented languages, such as C++ and Java, "structs" are replaced with "objects."

Data Types

All programs involve storing and manipulating data.

Luckily (???) computers only understand a few types of data. These include numbers, true/false values, characters (e.g., a, b, c, 1, 2, 3), lists of data, and complex data "structures" that combine other data types to create new data types.

Here's a quick overview of the available data types:

C, MatlabActionScript
Numbers (e.g., 7, 3, 14). Boolean (true or false)

Symbols (\'a\', \'b\', ... \'z\', \'1\', \'2\', ... \'9\', \'!\', \'^\', etc.)

Arrays (lists of data (all of the same data type!))