Table of Contents

Data types

TYPE var[(dim[,dim[,dim]])][,var...] )

PPL utilizes the following data types:

BOOLEAN

unsigned character (1 byte) 0 = FALSE, non-0 = TRUE

DATE

unsigned integer (2 bytes) PCBoard julian date (count of days since 1/1/1900)

DDATE

Signed long integer for julian date. DDATE is for use with DBase date fields. It holds a long integer for julian dates. When coerced to string type it is in the format CCYYMMDD or 19940527

INTEGER / SDWORD / LONG

signed long integer (4 bytes) Range: -2,147,483,648 → +2,147,483,647

MONEY

signed long integer (4 bytes) Range: -$21,474,836.48 → +$21,474,836.47

STRING

far character pointer (4 bytes) NULL is an empty string non-NULL points to a string of some length less than or equal to 256

TIME

signed long integer (4 bytes) Count of seconds since midnight

BIGSTR

Allows up to 2048 characters per big string (up from 256 for STRING variables) May include CHR(0) characters in the middle of the big string (unlike STRING variables which may not)

EDATE

Julian date in earth date format Deals with dates formatted YYMM.DD Range: Same as DATE

REAL / FLOAT

4-byte floating point number Range: +/-3.4E-38 - +/-3.4E+38 (7-digit precision)

DREAL / DOUBLE

8-byte floating point number Range: +/-1.7E-308 - +/-1.7E+308 (15-digit precision)

UNSIGNED / DWORD / UDWORD

4-byte unsigned integer Range: 0 - 4,294,967,295

BYTE / UBYTE

1-byte unsigned integer Range: 0 - 255

WORD / UWORD

2-byte unsigned integer Range: 0 - 65,535

SBYTE / SHORT

1-byte signed Integer Range: -128 - 127

SWORD / INT

2-byte signed integer Range: -32,768 - 32,767

NOTES

Any type may be assigned to any other type. This is the simplest way to accomplish type conversion. BOOLEAN, DATE, INTEGER, MONEY and TIME are all integer types and may be assigned to each other. Assignment from a larger data type to a smaller data type automatically converts the data to a format suitable for the smaller data type. Conversion to and from STRINGs is dependent on the other data type. DATEs are imported/exported as “MM-DD-YY”. TIMEs are imported/exported as “HH:MM:SS”. MONEYs are imported/exported as “#.##” without embedded dollar signs or commas, and using as many characters as needed to the left of the decimal point. All variables must be declared before use.


Tags: ppl