Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Outline the Benefits of Having a Variety of Data Types

Boolean:
Boolean is a part of a larger group of algebra that is used to making a T/F (True/False) statement. True will be written as the number 1, whereas false will be written as the number 2. Boolean can be written in both algorithms and coding. Boolean was developed by the English mathematician and computer pioneer George Boole (Hence the name Boolean). A boolean consists of operators such as and, or, not and xor. Booleans are often used in programming and today in internet search engines. Boolean expressions are expressions that result in the value of either true or false.
As mentioned above, a user can use Boolean searches to help locate more exact matches in internet searches.

String:
String is very useful for programmers because it can hold many letters and numbers without having to use the data type char. In programming, to use string you will have to use quotation marks to emphasise that it’s a quote and not a command. An example of string is in JavaScript: var carname = “Mercedes”. String is a contiguous sequence of symbols or values, such as a character string or a binary digit string.
Char:
http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/java/images/strings/charAt.gifChar is another data type that is useful to programmers. Char is used as a reserved keyword in a number of programming languages, such as C, C++, C# and Java. It is short for character, you would use char when you only need to hold one single character but when you don’t need string. In addition, other languages that do not have char as a data type may use the abbreviation for certain methods that are used with string values. For example, JavaScript has methods such as charAt() and charCodeAt() that return values relate to the calling string. The charAt() method, for instance, returns a string containing one character, which is the character at the location given as the framework to the function. . 





Integer:
Integer is one of the data types that a programmer will need whilst programming. An integer is a whole number, so no decimal places, just like in maths. Integers are useful for programmers when coding because some of their program will be in numbers. The use of integers as variables supports programming in various ways. For instance, a common strategy is to create an integer variable and store some value in it that will influence calculations made within the program. Examples include things like counters and calendars.

Float:
Float, also known as floating point is numbers that have decimals in them, such as 4.20 or 13.37, just as long as they have a decimal point in them. Float is similar to integer but float has decimals whereas integers don’t. There are also no fixed numbers before and after the decimal point. A float has numbers before and after the decimal place. Programmers will use the term float before the name of a variable. A second line of code can declare a value for the float variable by using the name of the variable, adding an equal’s sign and following that with the value.
The float’s variable is often used to include currency values in a computer program, such as US Dollars or Great British Pound Sterling. Floats generally use the same operators as integers in the same ways. The addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of these variables is fairly straight forward in most cases.


Date and Time:

Date and time is mainly used to store dates on a program, this could be like a calendar. On a calendar you can also set reminders or alarms to give you a message at a certain time. This can be about anything, whether to do your homework or go out with some friends. Date and time is important while coding a program because if you are running a program and it doesn’t have the correct date or time, it might not work properly.

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