Primitive data types

Spice supports eight different primitive data types out of the box: double, int, short, long, byte, char, string and bool. In addition, there is a builtin type-inferred type, called dyn. Let us take a look at each one individually!

The double data type¶

Doubles are signed, double-precision 64-bit IEEE 754 floating point numbers.

In Spice, variables of type double can be defined like this:

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double variable1 = 56.9042;

double variable2;
variable2 = -0.2349;

The int data type¶

Integers are signed, whole numbers of 32-bit, which have a range from a min of -2,147,483,648 to a max of 2,147,483,647.

In Spice, variables of type int can be defined like this:

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int variable1 = 903;

int variable2;
variable2 = -2;

The short data type¶

Integers are signed, whole numbers of 16-bit, which have a range from a min of -32,768 to a max of 32,767.

In Spice, variables of type short can be defined like this:

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short variable1 = 15s;

short variable2;
variable2 = 0s;

The long data type¶

Integers are signed, whole numbers of 64-bit, which have a range from a min of -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to a max of 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

In Spice, variables of type long can be defined like this:

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long variable1 = 12492309573l;

long variable2;
variable2 = -34945968l;

The byte data type¶

Bytes are unsigned, whole numbers of 8-bit, which have a range from a min of 0 to a max of 255.

In Spice, variables of type byte can be defined like this:

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byte variable1 = (byte) 11;

byte variable2;
variable2 = (byte) 12;

The char data type¶

Chars are unsigned, whole numbers of 8-bit, which have a range from a min of 0 to a max of 255. The value of a char represents the UTF-8 sign of the 8-bit integer value.

In Spice, variables of type char can be defined like this:

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char variable1 = 'A';

char variable2;
variable2 = '.';

The string data type¶

Strings are immutable sequences of 8-bit integers (chars) and contain text-like information. The length of a string is unlimited.

In Spice, variables of type string can be defined like this:

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string variable1 = "test string";

string variable2;
variable2 = "Hello World!";

The bool data type¶

Booleans are 1-bit integers and can be assigned with the exactly two values: true or false.

In Spice, variables of type bool can be defined like this:

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bool variable1 = true;

bool variable2;
variable2 = false;

The dyn data type¶

The dyn data type is a more unconventional data type. Dyn stands for dynamic and means that the dyn data type can hold any value of one of the eight types double, int, short, long, byte, char, string or bool. The concrete type of a dyn variable gets inferred at compile time so that the language stays type-safe. This also means, that as soon as you assign a value to a dyn variable, the type gets set fixed and is not mutable anymore.

Dyn variables can be defined like this:

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dyn variable1 = 1.24;
dyn variable2 = -67;
dyn variable3;
dyn variable4 = false;

variable3 = "demo string";