Applied Computing

A text data type consists of a ‘string of characters’. Text may also be referred to as a string, and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to the same data type. This type of field holds a mix of characters (letters, numbers, special characters), also referred to as alphanumeric.

Examples: "Sally", "3089", "0455555251"

An integer is a number without a fractional or decimal component – in other words, a whole number. Integers include negative numbers. 

Data that you can do mathematic operations with.

A floating-point number is a number with a fractional or decimal component, such as a decimal number. Where decimal numbers are required, such as when dealing with financial transactions or percentages, then the floating-point data type is used. Examples of the floating-point data type are ‘3.17’, ‘–6.890’ and ‘0.001’.

A floating-point number can be split into two parts: the mantissa and the exponent. The mantissa holds all of the digits in the number, with a decimal point after the first digit that is not zero. The exponent holds the power of 10 by which the mantissa must be multiplied to regain the original number. For example, 0.00317 can be expressed as 3.17 × 10–3 , in which case the mantissa is 3.17 and the exponent is –3.

The bane of exels existance!!!
Strictly speaking, a date format is another variation on the numeric data type. The value of a date is normally based on the number of days since the ‘zero’ day built into the operating system. For example, the day ‘1’ might be displayed as 01 January 1900, while ‘42673’ would be displayed as 30 October 2016. Calculations can be performed on dates, which can be handy when considering the difference between them. Dates can be formatted to show a combination of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds, depending on the needs of the user. In terms of time, they can also display 12- and 24-hour clocks.

A Boolean data type can hold one of only two possible values, usually ‘true’ or ‘false’. A Boolean data type is known as a logical data type. It is often used in conditional statements to test if a condition or value is true or not, but it may also represent Yes/No or On/Off.

A character data type holds a single letter, number or symbol. Numbers stored as a character data type cannot be used in mathematical calculations. This is a text field that will only accept a single alphanumeric character. It is used when there are multiple options for a value, but they can be represented with a single character to make data entry easier and to save storage space. For example, small, medium and large sizes of the same type of wooden box might be entered as ‘S’, ‘M’ or ‘L’, respectively.