Chapter 6

Data Types
Chapter 6 Topics
• Introduction
• Primitive Data Types
• Character String Types
• User-Defined Ordinal Types
• Array Types
• Associative Arrays
• Record Types
• Tuple Types
• List Types
• Union Types
• Pointer and Reference Types
• Type Checking
• Strong Typing
• Type Equivalence
• Theory and Data Types
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Introduction

• A data type defines a collection of data

objects and a set of predefined operations
on those objects
• A descriptor is the collection of the
attributes of a variable
• An object represents an instance of a
user-defined (abstract data) type
• One design issue for all data types: What
operations are defined and how are they
specified?

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Primitive Data Types

• Almost all programming languages provide

a set of primitive data types
• Primitive data types: Those not defined in
terms of other data types
• Some primitive data types are merely
reflections of the hardware
• Others require only a little non-hardware
support for their implementation

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Primitive Data Types: Integer

• Almost always an exact reflection of the

hardware so the mapping is trivial
• There may be as many as eight different
integer types in a language
• Java’s signed integer sizes: byte, short,
int, long

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Primitive Data Types: Floating Point

• Model real numbers, but only as

approximations
• Languages for scientific use support at
least two floating-point types (e.g., float
and double; sometimes more
• Usually exactly like the hardware, but not
always
• IEEE Floating-Point
Standard 754

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Primitive Data Types: Complex

• Some languages support a complex type,

e.g., C99, Fortran, and Python
• Each value consists of two floats, the real
part and the imaginary part
• Literal form (in Python):
(7 + 3j), where 7 is the real part and 3 is
the imaginary part

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Primitive Data Types: Decimal

• For business applications (money)

– Essential to COBOL
– C# offers a decimal data type
• Store a fixed number of decimal digits, in
coded form (BCD)
• Advantage: accuracy
• Disadvantages: limited range, wastes
memory

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Primitive Data Types: Boolean

• Simplest of all
• Range of values: two elements, one for
“true” and one for “false”
• Could be implemented as bits, but often as
bytes
– Advantage: readability

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Primitive Data Types: Character

• Stored as numeric codings

• Most commonly used coding: ASCII
• An alternative, 16-bit coding: Unicode
(UCS-2)
– Includes characters from most natural
languages
– Originally used in Java
– C# and JavaScript also support Unicode
• 32-bit Unicode (UCS-4)
– Supported by Fortran, starting with 2003
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Character String Types

• Values are sequences of characters

• Design issues:
– Is it a primitive type or just a special kind of
array?
– Should the length of strings be static or
dynamic?

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Character String Types Operations

• Typical operations:
– Assignment and copying
– Comparison (=, >, etc.)
– Catenation
– Substring reference
– Pattern matching

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Character String Type in Certain
Languages
• C and C++
– Not primitive
– Use char arrays and a library of functions that provide
operations
• SNOBOL4 (a string manipulation language)
– Primitive
– Many operations, including elaborate pattern matching
• Fortran and Python
– Primitive type with assignment and several operations
• Java
– Primitive via the String class
• Perl, JavaScript, Ruby, and PHP
- Provide built-in pattern matching, using regular
expressions

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Character String Length Options

• Static: COBOL, Java’s String class

• Limited Dynamic Length: C and C++
– In these languages, a special character is used
to indicate the end of a string’s characters,
rather than maintaining the length
• Dynamic (no maximum): SNOBOL4, Perl,
JavaScript
• Ada supports all three string length options

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User-Defined Ordinal Types

• An ordinal type is one in which the range of

possible values can be easily associated
with the set of positive integers
• Examples of primitive ordinal types in Java
– integer
– char
– boolean

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Enumeration Types

• All possible values, which are named

constants, are provided in the definition
• C# example
enum days {mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun};
• Design issues
– Is an enumeration constant allowed to appear in
more than one type definition, and if so, how is
the type of an occurrence of that constant
checked?
– Are enumeration values coerced to integer?
– Any other type coerced to an enumeration type?

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Evaluation of Enumerated Type

• Aid to readability, e.g., no need to code a

color as a number
• Aid to reliability, e.g., compiler can check:
– operations (don’t allow colors to be added)
– No enumeration variable can be assigned a
value outside its defined range
– Ada, C#, and Java 5.0 provide better support for
enumeration than C++ because enumeration
type variables in these languages are not
coerced into integer types

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Subrange Types

• An ordered contiguous subsequence of an

ordinal type
– Example: 12..18 is a subrange of integer type
• Ada’s design
type Days is (mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun);
subtype Weekdays is Days range mon..fri;
subtype Index is Integer range 1..100;

Day1: Days;
Day2: Weekday;
Day2 := Day1;

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Subrange Evaluation

• Aid to readability
– Make it clear to the readers that variables of
subrange can store only certain range of values
• Reliability
– Assigning a value to a subrange variable that is
outside the specified range is detected as an
error

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Implementation of User-Defined
Ordinal Types

• Enumeration types are implemented as

integers
• Subrange types are implemented like the
parent types with code inserted (by the
compiler) to restrict assignments to
subrange variables

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Array Types

• An array is a homogeneous aggregate of

data elements in which an individual
element is identified by its position in the
aggregate, relative to the first element.

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Array Design Issues
• What types are legal for subscripts?
• Are subscripting expressions in element
references range checked?
• When are subscript ranges bound?
• When does allocation take place?
• Are ragged or rectangular multidimensional
arrays allowed, or both?
• What is the maximum number of subscripts?
• Can array objects be initialized?
• Are any kind of slices supported?

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Array Indexing

• Indexing (or subscripting) is a mapping

from indices to elements
array_name (index_value_list)  an element
• Index Syntax
– Fortran and Ada use parentheses
• Ada explicitly uses parentheses to show uniformity
between array references and function calls because
both are mappings
– Most other languages use brackets

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Arrays Index (Subscript) Types

• FORTRAN, C: integer only

• Ada: integer or enumeration (includes Boolean and
char)
• Java: integer types only
• Index range checking
- C, C++, Perl, and Fortran do not specify
range checking
- Java, ML, C# specify range checking
- In Ada, the default is to require range
checking, but it can be turned off

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Array Initialization

• Some language allow initialization at the

time of storage allocation
– C, C++, Java, C# example
int list [] = {4, 5, 7, 83}
– Character strings in C and C++
char name [] = ″freddie″;
– Arrays of strings in C and C++
char *names [] = {″Bob″, ″Jake″, ″Joe″];
– Java initialization of String objects
String[] names = {″Bob″, ″Jake″, ″Joe″};

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Heterogeneous Arrays

• A heterogeneous array is one in which the

elements need not be of the same type
• Supported by Perl, Python, JavaScript, and
Ruby

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Array Initialization

• C-based languages
– int list [] = {1, 3, 5, 7}
– char *names [] = {″Mike″, ″Fred″, ″Mary Lou″};
• Ada
– List : array (1..5) of Integer :=
(1 => 17, 3 => 34, others => 0);
• Python
– List comprehensions
list = [x ** 2 for x in range(12) if x % 3 == 0]
puts [0, 9, 36, 81] in list

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Arrays Operations
• APL provides the most powerful array processing
operations for vectors and matrixes as well as
unary operators (for example, to reverse column
elements)
• Ada allows array assignment but also catenation
• Python’s array assignments, but they are only
reference changes. Python also supports array
catenation and element membership operations
• Ruby also provides array catenation
• Fortran provides elemental operations because
they are between pairs of array elements
– For example, + operator between two arrays results in an
array of the sums of the element pairs of the two arrays

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Rectangular and Jagged Arrays

• A rectangular array is a multi-dimensioned

array in which all of the rows have the same
number of elements and all columns have
the same number of elements
• A jagged matrix has rows with varying
number of elements
– Possible when multi-dimensioned arrays
actually appear as arrays of arrays
• C, C++, and Java support jagged arrays
• Fortran, Ada, and C# support rectangular
arrays (C# also supports jagged arrays)
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Slices

• A slice is some substructure of an array;

nothing more than a referencing
mechanism
• Slices are only useful in languages that
have array operations

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Slice Examples

• Python
vector = [2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16]
mat = [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]

vector (3:6) is a three-element array

mat[0][0:2] is the first and second element of the
first row of mat
• Ruby supports slices with the slice method
list.slice(2, 2) returns the third and fourth
elements of list

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Implementation of Arrays
• Access function maps subscript expressions
to an address in the array
• Access function for single-dimensioned
arrays:
address(list[k]) = address (list[lower_bound])
+ ((k-lower_bound) * element_size)

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Accessing Multi-dimensioned Arrays

• Two common ways:

– Row major order (by rows) – used in most
languages
– Column major order (by columns) – used in
Fortran
– A compile-time descriptor
for a multidimensional
array

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Locating an Element in a Multi-
dimensioned Array
•General format
Location (a[I,j]) = address of a [row_lb,col_lb] +
(((I - row_lb) * n) + (j - col_lb)) * element_size

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Compile-Time Descriptors

Single-dimensioned array Multidimensional array

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Record Types

• A record is a possibly heterogeneous

aggregate of data elements in which the
individual elements are identified by names
• Design issues:
– What is the syntactic form of references to the
field?
– Are elliptical references allowed

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Evaluation and Comparison to Arrays

• Records are used when collection of data

values is heterogeneous
• Access to array elements is much slower
than access to record fields, because
subscripts are dynamic (field names are
static)
• Dynamic subscripts could be used with
record field access, but it would disallow
type checking and it would be much slower

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Implementation of Record Type

Offset address relative to

the beginning of the records
is associated with each field

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Tuple Types

• A tuple is a data type that is similar to a

record, except that the elements are not
named
• Used in Python, ML, and F# to allow
functions to return multiple values
– Python
• Closely related to its lists, but immutable
• Create with a tuple literal
myTuple = (3, 5.8, ′apple′)
Referenced with subscripts (begin at 1)
Catenation with + and deleted with del
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List Types
• Lists in LISP and Scheme are delimited by
parentheses and use no commas
(A B C D) and (A (B C) D)
• Data and code have the same form
As data, (A B C) is literally what it is
As code, (A B C) is the function A applied to the
parameters B and C
• The interpreter needs to know which a list
is, so if it is data, we quote it with an
apostrophe
′(A B C) is data
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List Types (continued)

• List Operations in Scheme

– CAR returns the first element of its list parameter
(CAR ′(A B C)) returns A
– CDR returns the remainder of its list parameter
after the first element has been removed
(CDR ′(A B C)) returns (B C)
- CONS puts its first parameter into its second
parameter, a list, to make a new list
(CONS ′A (B C)) returns (A B C)
- LIST returns a new list of its parameters
(LIST ′A ′B ′(C D)) returns (A B (C D))

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Unions Types

• A union is a type whose variables are

allowed to store different type values at
different times during execution
• Design issues
– Should type checking be required?
– Should unions be embedded in records?

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Implementation of Unions
type Node (Tag : Boolean) is
record
case Tag is
when True => Count : Integer;
when False => Sum : Float;
end case;
end record;

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Evaluation of Unions

• Free unions are unsafe

– Do not allow type checking
• Java and C# do not support unions
– Reflective of growing concerns for safety in
programming language
• Ada’s descriminated unions are safe

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Pointer and Reference Types

• A pointer type variable has a range of

values that consists of memory addresses
and a special value, nil
• Provide the power of indirect addressing
• Provide a way to manage dynamic memory
• A pointer can be used to access a location
in the area where storage is dynamically
created (usually called a heap)

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Design Issues of Pointers

• What are the scope of and lifetime of a

pointer variable?
• What is the lifetime of a heap-dynamic
variable?
• Are pointers restricted as to the type of
value to which they can point?
• Are pointers used for dynamic storage
management, indirect addressing, or both?
• Should the language support pointer types,
reference types, or both?

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Pointer Operations

• Two fundamental operations: assignment

and dereferencing
• Assignment is used to set a pointer
variable’s value to some useful address
• Dereferencing yields the value stored at the
location represented by the pointer’s value
– Dereferencing can be explicit or implicit
– C++ uses an explicit operation via *
j = *ptr
sets j to the value located at ptr

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Pointer Assignment Illustrated

The assignment operation j = *ptr

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Problems with Pointers
• Dangling pointers (dangerous)
– A pointer points to a heap-dynamic variable that has been
deallocated
• Lost heap-dynamic variable
– An allocated heap-dynamic variable that is no longer
accessible to the user program (often called garbage)
• Pointer p1 is set to point to a newly created heap-
dynamic variable
• Pointer p1 is later set to point to another newly created
heap-dynamic variable
• The process of losing heap-dynamic variables is called
memory leakage

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Pointers in C and C++

• Extremely flexible but must be used with care

• Pointers can point at any variable regardless of
when or where it was allocated
• Used for dynamic storage management and
addressing
• Pointer arithmetic is possible
• Explicit dereferencing and address-of operators
• Domain type need not be fixed (void *)
void * can point to any type and can be type
checked (cannot be de-referenced)

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Pointer Arithmetic in C and C++

float stuff[100];
float *p;
p = stuff;

*(p+5) is equivalent to stuff[5] and p[5]

*(p+i) is equivalent to stuff[i] and p[i]

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Reference Types

• C++ includes a special kind of pointer type

called a reference type that is used
primarily for formal parameters
– Advantages of both pass-by-reference and
pass-by-value
• Java extends C++’s reference variables and
allows them to replace pointers entirely
– References are references to objects, rather than
being addresses
• C# includes both the references of Java and
the pointers of C++

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Evaluation of Pointers

• Dangling pointers and dangling objects are

problems as is heap management
• Pointers are like goto's--they widen the
range of cells that can be accessed by a
variable
• Pointers or references are necessary for
dynamic data structures--so we can't
design a language without them

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Type Checking

• Generalize the concept of operands and operators to include

subprograms and assignments

• Type checking is the activity of ensuring that the operands of

an operator are of compatible types

• A compatible type is one that is either legal for the operator,

or is allowed under language rules to be implicitly converted,
by compiler- generated code, to a legal type
– This automatic conversion is called a coercion.

• A type error is the application of an operator to an operand

of an inappropriate type

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Type Checking (continued)

• If all type bindings are static, nearly all type

checking can be static
• If type bindings are dynamic, type checking
must be dynamic
• A programming language is strongly typed
if type errors are always detected
• Advantage of strong typing: allows the
detection of the misuses of variables that
result in type errors

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Strong Typing

Language examples:
– C and C++ are not: parameter type checking
can be avoided; unions are not type checked
– Ada is, almost (UNCHECKED CONVERSION is loophole)
(Java and C# are similar to Ada)

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Structure Type Equivalence

• Structure type equivalence means that two

variables have equivalent types if their
types have identical structures
• More flexible, but harder to implement

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Type Equivalence (continued)

• Consider the problem of two structured types:

– Are two record types equivalent if they are
structurally the same but use different field
names?
– Are two array types equivalent if they are the
same except that the subscripts are different?
(e.g. [1..10] and [0..9])
– Are two enumeration types equivalent if their
components are spelled differently?
– With structural type equivalence, you cannot
differentiate between types of the same
structure (e.g. different units of speed, both
float)
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Summary

• The data types of a language are a large part of

what determines that language’s style and
usefulness
• The primitive data types of most imperative
languages include numeric, character, and Boolean
types
• The user-defined enumeration and subrange types
are convenient and add to the readability and
reliability of programs
• Arrays and records are included in most languages
• Pointers are used for addressing flexibility and to
control dynamic storage management

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