Types

The type of an object serves two purposes:

• It expresses what operations can be applied to the objects in question. In a way, it controls that apples cannot be added to oranges;
• It determines the internal representation of values in the computer's memory.

There are four basic types in Elan, denoted in program texts by the keywords:

• INT
  integral numbers in the range -2147483647 to 2147483647;
• REAL
  real numbers in a precision of 14 decimals;
• BOOL
  truth values, true and false; and
• TEXT
  sequences of characters.

Furthermore, objects of any type can be composed into one dimensional rows. These composed types are discussed in the subchapter on rows.