Dealing with Data Types - Page 3

Numbers and Boolean

Numbers are another form of literal although this time you don't use quote marks. There is a very distinct difference between the number 1 and the character "1". The first is a number, the second is a string. The way you were taught numbers in school is how you should treat the number data type. Add them, subtract them and multiply them 'til your heart's content!

This is what a number looks like - 120437289 (just in case you had forgotten :)

The Boolean data type is a source of confusion for some novice programmers but it is a very simple concept. It is one of the fundamental concepts of computing, on and off. Other manifestations of this are "yes/no" and the binary numbers "1/0", the most common however is True and False. False holds the value of 0 and True holds any non-zero value, but usually it's 1.

True (1), False (0)

That's it for primitive data types but remember all three physically hold their values like a container. The information presented here has simply been an introduction. If you are seeking more information, we will be pursuing these data types further in the tutorial on Operators. But before we jump ahead of ourselves let's introduce you to the more complex data types.