Noun | 1. | type - a subdivision of a particular kind of thing; "what type of sculpture do you prefer?" Antonyms: antitype - an opposite or contrasting type |
2. | type - a person of a specified kind (usually with many eccentricities); "a real character"; "a strange character"; "a friendly eccentric"; "the capable type"; "a mental case" | |
3. | type - (biology) the taxonomic group whose characteristics are used to define the next higher taxon | |
4. | type - printed characters; "small type is hard to read" | |
5. | type - a small metal block bearing a raised character on one end; produces a printed character when inked and pressed on paper; "he dropped a case of type, so they made him pick them up" | |
6. | type - all of the tokens of the same symbol; "the word `element' contains five different types of character" | |
Verb | 1. | type - write by means of a keyboard with types; "type the acceptance letter, please" Synonyms: typewrite |
2. | type - identify as belonging to a certain type; "Such people can practically be typed" Synonyms: typecast |
(theory, programming) | type - (Or "data type") A set of values from
which a variable, constant, function, or other expression may
take its value. A type is a classification of data that tells
the compiler or interpreter how the programmer intends to
use it. For example, the process and result of adding two
variables differs greatly according to whether they are
integers, floating point numbers, or strings. Types supported by most programming languages include integers (usually limited to some range so they will fit in one word of storage), Booleans, floating point numbers, and characters. Strings are also common, and are represented as lists of characters in some languages. If s and t are types, then so is s -> t, the type of functions from s to t; that is, give them a term of type s, functions of type s -> t will return a term of type t. Some types are primitive - built-in to the language, with no visible internal structure - e.g. Boolean; others are composite - constructed from one or more other types (of either kind) - e.g. lists, structures, unions. Some languages provide strong typing, others allow implicit type conversion and/or explicit type conversion. |