CONCEPT
    types

DESCRIPTION

    Variables can have the following types:

    o int       An integer. Typically full 32 bits signed, yielding a
                range of at least -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. The
                exact available range is given by the predefined
                macros __INT_MIN__ and __INT_MAX__.

                Integer values can be specified in decimal, in
                sedecimal when preceeded by '0x' (e.g. 0x11), binary
                when preceeded by '0b' (e.g. 0b00010001), octal when
                preceeded by '0o' (e.g. 0o21) and as character
                yielding the charset value for the character as the number
                to use (e.g. '0' yields 48 on ASCII machines).

                Character values are enclosed in single-quotes ('),
                with the sequence ''' returning the single-quote
                itself. Instead of the literal character an
                escape-sequence can be written between the
                single-quotes:
                  \N   : the character code N in decimal
                  \0xN : the character code N in sedecimal
                  \xN  : the character code N in sedecimal
                  \0oN : the character code N in octal
                  \0bN : the character code N in binary
                  \a   : BEL (0x07)
                  \b   : Backspace (0x08)
                  \t   : Tab (0x09)
                  \e   : Escape (0x1b)
                  \n   : Newline (0x0a)
                  \f   : Formfeed (0x0c)
                  \r   : Carriage Return (0x0d)
                  \<other character>: the given character

    o status    OUTDATED - status was planned to be an optimized
                boolean format, but this was never actually
                implemented. status does work; however, since it
                is only an alias for type 'int', just use int.

    o string    Strings in lpc are true strings, not arrays of characters
                as in C (and not pointers to strings). Strings are
                mutable -- that is, the contents of a string can be
                modified as needed.

                The text of a string is written between double-quotes
                ("). A string can written over several lines when the
                lineends are escaped (like a macro), however a better
                solution is to write one string per line and let the
                gamedriver concatenate them.

                String text typically consists of literal characters,
                but escape-sequences can be used instead of
                characters:
                  \<CR>     : Carriage Return (0x0d)
                  \<CR><LF> : ignored
                  \<LF>     : ignored
                  \<LF><CR> : ignored

                  \N   : the character code N in decimal
                  \0xN : the character code N in sedecimal
                  \xN  : the character code N in sedecimal
                  \0oN : the character code N in octal
                  \0bN : the character code N in binary
                  \a   : BEL (0x07)
                  \b   : Backspace (0x08)
                  \t   : Tab (0x09)
                  \e   : Escape (0x1b)
                  \n   : Newline (0x0a)
                  \f   : Formfeed (0x0c)
                  \r   : Carriage Return (0x0d)
                  \"   : The double quote (")
                  \<other character>: the given character

                Adjacent string literals are automatically
                concatenated by the driver when the LPC program is
                compiled. String literals joined with '+' are
                concatenated by the LPC compiler if the #pragma
                combine_strings is set (the default); if the pragma is
                not set, the string literals are conacatenated at run
                time.

    o object    Pointer to an object. Objects are always passed by
                reference.

    o array     Pointer to a vector of values, which could also
                be an alist. Arrays take the form ({ n1, n2, n3 })
                and may contain any type or a mix of types. Arrays
                are always passed by reference. Note that the size
                of arrays in LPC, unlike most programming languages,
                CAN be changed at run-time.

    o mapping   An 'associative array' consisting of values indexed by
                keys. The indices can be any kind of datatype.
                Mappings take the form ([ key1: value1, key2: value2 ]).
                By default, mappings are passed by reference.

    o closure   References to executable code, both to local
                functions, efuns and to functions compiled at
                run-time ("lambda closures").

    o symbol    Identifier names, which in essence are quoted strings.
                They are used to compute lambda closures, e.g. instead
                of ({..., 'ident, ... }) you can write declare a
                'symbol' variable foo, compute a value for it, and then
                create the closure as ({ ..., foo, ... })

    o float     A floating point number in the absolute range
                __FLOAT_MIN__ to __FLOAT_MAX__ (typically 1e-38 to 1e+38).
                Floating point numbers are signified by a '.'
                appearing, e.g. '1' is integer 1, but '1.' is
                floating-point 1 .

    o mixed     A variable allowed to take a value of any type (int,
                string, object, array, mapping, float or closure).

    All uninitialized variables have the value 0.

    The type of a variable is really only for documentation. Unless
    you define #pragma strict_types, variables can actually be of
    any type and has no effect at all on the program. However, it's
    extremely bad style to declare one type but use another, so
    please try to avoid this.

    A pointer to a destructed object will always have the value 0.


SEE ALSO
    alists(LPC), arrays(LPC), mappings(LPC), closures(LPC),
    typeof(E), get_type_info(E), inheritance(LPC), pragma(LPC),
    modifiers(LPC), escape(LPC)
