data type
A number of data types are built in, including signed and unsigned integers, single and
double precision floating point numbers, single and double precision floating point
complex numbers, and strings. Additional user-defined types can be defined in programs.
These composite types are fixed-size collections of built-in and other user-defined types.
The type suffix, type name, and format of the built-in data types are given in the following table:
| @ | SBYTE | Signed byte (8-bits) |
| @@ | UBYTE | Unsigned byte (8-bits) |
| % | SSHORT | Signed short (16-bits) |
| %% | USHORT | Unsigned short (16-bits) |
| & | SLONG | Signed long (32-bits) |
| && | ULONG | Unsigned long (32-bits) |
| XLONG | Natural long (32/64-bits) | |
| GOADDR | GOTO address (32/64-bits) | |
| SUBADDR | GOSUB address (32/64-bits) | |
| FUNCADDR | FUNCTION address (32/64-bits) | |
| $$ | GIANT | Signed giant (64-bits) |
| ! | SINGLE | IEEE Single Precision Floating Point (32-bits) |
| # | DOUBLE | IEEE Double Precision Floating Point (64-bits) |
| $ | STRING | String of unsigned bytes (characters) |
| SCOMPLEX | Single Precision Complex (Two SINGLEs) | |
| DCOMPLEX | Double Precision Complex (Two DOUBLEs) |
type suffix
Type suffixes make the data types of variables instantly visible, but are not required.
They can be appended to variables and arrays to specify data type when type visibility is
important.
simple type
Integer and floating point types are called simple types, because they contain a single
element, a number.
string
Strings are sequences of unsigned bytes normally used to hold characters. Strings are very
common in most programs, so special capabilities make string programming faster and more
convenient.
composite type
Composite types are collections of simple types, composite types, fixed-size strings, and
fixed-size one dimensional arrays of any of these. Two complex number data types, SCOMPLEX
and DCOMPLEX , are built in composite types. Additional composite types defined in the
prolog of programs, and are called user-defined types.