The following table describes the different data types available in APL. The second column states if the data type is a primitive, or an object. The third column indicates the default value that an uninitialized variable will obtain.
| Data type | P/O | Def val | Range | Description | Example | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| boolean | P | false | 1 Byte | Boolean value (true|false). | boolean aBool=true; | |||||
| byte | P | 0 | 1 Byte, -128 to +127 | Single byte integer value. | byte aNumber=127; | |||||
| char | P | '\0' | 1 Byte | A single character value. | char aCharacter='a'; | |||||
| short | P | 0 | 2 Bytes, -32,768 to +32,767 | Short integer value. | short aNumber=31000; | |||||
| int | P | 0 | 4 Bytes, -2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647 | Integer values have normal Java syntax, for instance: 42, 0x2A An integer literal is always of the most narrow integer type that can contain the value. This normally works as expected, since numeric types can be implicitly converted to any wider numeric type. | int aNumber=2147483640; | |||||
| float | P | 0/0 | 4 Bytes, 1.40129846432481707e-45 to 3.40282346638528860e+38 (positive or negative) | Single-precision floating point. | float aValue=0.5; | |||||
| double | P | 0/0 | 8 Bytes, 4.94065645841246544e-324d to 1.79769313486231570e+308d (positive or negative). | Double-precision floating point. When using floating-point literals, (that is, float (f) or double (d) values) all floating-point literals without trailing d is considered float literals.
Double types may contain positive or negative infinity. | double aValue=432482943.1; double POS_INFINITY=1.0/0.0; double NEG_INFINITY=-1.0/0.0; | |||||
| long | P | 0 | 8 Bytes, -2^63 to +(2^63 -1) | Long integer value. | long aNumber=92233720368547; | |||||
| bigint | O | 0 | Unlimited | Provides storage for any integer value. | bigint aNumber; | |||||
| bigdec | O | 0 | Unlimited | Provides storage for any integer value with a decimal point. Values assigned to bigdecimal variables in APL must be suffixed with b.
| bigdec aNumber; | |||||
| string | O | null | Unlimited | Values assigned to string variables in APL must be surrounded with double quotes. A character preceded by a backslash (\) is an escape sequence and has a special meaning to the compiler. The following sequences are available:
Some string comparison functions use regular expressions. If special characters such as "*", "?" are to be used as characters in the regular expression, they must be escaped with two backslashes in the APL since these strings will be parsed twice. For instance, the following function will return the index of the question mark in the string: String values surrounded with triple double quotes are referred to as multiline strings. You can span the content of these string across line boundaries. Multiline strings does not support, or need, escape characters. All characters, including double quotes, are assigned as they appear. | string aString = "foobar";
string mlString = """{
"key1": "value 1",
"key2": "value 2"
}"""; | |||||
| any | O | null | Can be assigned any value of any type. | any aVar; aVar = 1; aVar = "foobar"; | ||||||
| bitset | O | null | Represents a bit string that grows as needed. The bits are indexed by non-negative integers. | bitset aBitset; | ||||||
| bytearray | O | null | Bytearray type. | bytearray anArray; | ||||||
| date | O | null | Holds date and time, including the timezone. | date aDate; | ||||||
| ipaddress | O | null | Holds IP address information. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are supported. | ipaddress anIp = ipLocalHost(); | ||||||
| list <type> | O | null | List of objects of the specified type. If a list of lists is to be declared the ">" characters must be separated by at least one space, not to conflict with the ">>" operator. That is, | list<int>intList; | ||||||
| map | O | null | Hash maps allowing key/value pairs to be defined. | map<string, int> aMap = mapCreate(string, int); | ||||||
| table | O | null | Special type used to hold table data used by the table commands. | table aTable =
tableCreate("Default",
anSQL); | ||||||
| UDRType | O | null | Holds a reference to a UDR. The UDRType must be a defined format or compilation will fail. There is also a special format available for generic UDRs called drudr and is of drudr type. | MyDefinedType aUDR; drudr anyUDR; | ||||||
| uuid | O | null | 128 bits | Immutable universally unique identifier (UUID). | uuid u=uuidCreateRandom(); |
...
Within the consume block, the incoming UDR can be accessed using the special variable input. The instanceOf function may be useful in case of dealing with several UDR types. Refer to instanceOf in 3.4 Misc Functions.
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