next up previous contents
Next: Basic Operations Up: Magnitudes and Numbers Previous: Magnitudes and Numbers   Contents

Basic Types

Magnitude
the abstract protocol for linearly-comparable objects, following <, >, <=, >=, and =.
Number
the abstract type of dimensionless quantities.
Integer
integral quantities, generally.
SmallInteger
machine-word-limited integer values (minus 1 bit for the immediate-value flag). Their normal protocol will not produce errors inconsistent with mathematic behavior of Integers, however: instead of overflows, BigInteger objects of the appropriate value are returned.
BigInteger
larger Integers, implemented by wrapping ByteArrays with the appropriate behavior.
Fraction
An exact representation of a quotient, or rational number.
Float
A low-level floating-point numeric representation, being inexact. Floats are currently only implemented as SingleFloat, a single-precision floating-point number representation.
Complex
A complex number, similar to a pair of real numbers.



Brian Rice 2004-08-24