path: root/system/doc/reference_manual/data_types.xml

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<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2003</year><year>2017</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
      Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
      you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
      You may obtain a copy of the License at
 
          http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

      Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
      distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
      WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
      See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
      limitations under the License.
    
    </legalnotice>

    <title>Data Types</title>
    <prepared></prepared>
    <docno></docno>
    <date></date>
    <rev></rev>
    <file>data_types.xml</file>
  </header>
    <p>Erlang provides a number of data types, which are listed in
      this section.</p>

  <section>
    <title>Terms</title>
    <p>A piece of data of any data type is called a <em>term</em>.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Number</title>
    <p>There are two types of numeric literals, <em>integers</em> and
      <em>floats</em>. Besides the conventional notation, there are two
      Erlang-specific notations:</p>
    <list type="bulleted">
      <item><c>$</c><em><c>char</c></em>      <br></br>

       ASCII value or unicode code-point of the character
       <em><c>char</c></em>.</item>
      <item><em><c>base</c></em><c>#</c><em><c>value</c></em>      <br></br>

       Integer with the base <em><c>base</c></em>, that must be an
       integer in the range 2..36.</item>
    </list>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>42.</input>
42
2> <input>$A.</input>
65
3> <input>$\n.</input>
10
4> <input>2#101.</input>
5
5> <input>16#1f.</input>
31
6> <input>2.3.</input>
2.3
7> <input>2.3e3.</input>
2.3e3
8> <input>2.3e-3.</input>
0.0023</pre>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Atom</title>
    <p>An atom is a literal, a constant with name. An atom is to be
      enclosed in single quotes (') if it does not begin with a
      lower-case letter or if it contains other characters than
      alphanumeric characters, underscore (_), or @.</p>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
hello
phone_number
'Monday'
'phone number'</pre>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Bit Strings and Binaries</title>
    <p>A bit string is used to store an area of untyped memory.</p>
    <p>Bit strings are expressed using the
      <seealso marker="expressions#bit_syntax">bit syntax</seealso>.</p>
    <p>Bit strings that consist of a number of bits that are evenly
      divisible by eight, are called <em>binaries</em></p>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>&lt;&lt;10,20&gt;&gt;.</input>
&lt;&lt;10,20>>
2> <input>&lt;&lt;"ABC"&gt;&gt;.</input>
&lt;&lt;"ABC">>
1> <input>&lt;&lt;1:1,0:1&gt;&gt;.</input>
&lt;&lt;2:2>></pre>
    <p>For more examples,
      see <seealso marker="doc/programming_examples:bit_syntax">
      Programming Examples</seealso>.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Reference</title>
    <p>A reference is a term that is unique in an Erlang runtime
      system, created by calling <c>make_ref/0</c>.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Fun</title>
    <p>A fun is a functional object. Funs make it possible to create
      an anonymous function and pass the function itself -- not its
      name -- as argument to other functions.</p>
    <p><em>Example:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>Fun1 = fun (X) -> X+1 end.</input>
#Fun&lt;erl_eval.6.39074546&gt;
2> <input>Fun1(2).</input>
3</pre>
    <p>Read more about funs in <seealso marker="expressions#funs">
      Fun Expressions</seealso>. For more examples, see
      <seealso marker="doc/programming_examples:funs">
      Programming Examples</seealso>.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Port Identifier</title>
    <p>A port identifier identifies an Erlang port.</p>
    <p><c>open_port/2</c>, which is used to create ports, returns
      a value of this data type.</p>
    <p>Read more about ports in <seealso marker="ports">Ports and Port Drivers</seealso>.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Pid</title>
    <p>A process identifier, pid, identifies a process.</p>
    <p>The following BIFs, which are used to create processes, return
      values of this data type:</p>
    <list type="bulleted">
      <item><c>spawn/1,2,3,4</c></item>
      <item><c>spawn_link/1,2,3,4</c></item>
      <item><c>spawn_opt/4</c></item>
    </list>
    <p><em>Example:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>spawn(m, f, []).</input>
&lt;0.51.0></pre>
    <p>In the following example, the BIF <c>self()</c> returns
      the pid of the calling process:</p>
    <pre>
-module(m).
-export([loop/0]).

loop() ->
    receive
        who_are_you ->
            io:format("I am ~p~n", [self()]),
            loop()
    end.

1> <input>P = spawn(m, loop, []).</input>
&lt;0.58.0>
2> <input>P ! who_are_you.</input>
I am &lt;0.58.0>
who_are_you</pre>
    <p>Read more about processes in
      <seealso marker="processes">Processes</seealso>.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Tuple</title>
    <p>A tuple is a compound data type with a fixed number of terms:</p>
    <pre>
{Term1,...,TermN}</pre>
    <p>Each term <c>Term</c> in the tuple is called an
      <em>element</em>. The number of elements is said to be
      the <em>size</em> of the tuple.</p>
    <p>There exists a number of BIFs to manipulate tuples.</p>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>P = {adam,24,{july,29}}.</input>
{adam,24,{july,29}}
2> <input>element(1,P).</input>
adam
3> <input>element(3,P).</input>
{july,29}
4> <input>P2 = setelement(2,P,25).</input>
{adam,25,{july,29}}
5> <input>tuple_size(P).</input>
3
6> <input>tuple_size({}).</input>
0</pre>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Map</title>
    <p>A map is a compound data type with a variable number of
      key-value associations:</p>
    <pre>
#{Key1=>Value1,...,KeyN=>ValueN}</pre>
	<p>Each key-value association in the map is called an
		<em>association pair</em>. The key and value parts of the pair are
		called <em>elements</em>. The number of association pairs is said to be
      the <em>size</em> of the map.</p>
    <p>There exists a number of BIFs to manipulate maps.</p>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>M1 = #{name=>adam,age=>24,date=>{july,29}}.</input>
#{age => 24,date => {july,29},name => adam}
2> <input>maps:get(name,M1).</input>
adam
3> <input>maps:get(date,M1).</input>
{july,29}
4> <input>M2 = maps:update(age,25,M1).</input>
#{age => 25,date => {july,29},name => adam}
5> <input>map_size(M).</input>
3
6> <input>map_size(#{}).</input>
0</pre>
    <p>A collection of maps processing functions can be found in
      <seealso marker="stdlib:maps"><c>maps</c></seealso> manual page
      in STDLIB.</p>
    <p>Read more about maps in <seealso marker="expressions#map_expressions">
      Map Expressions</seealso>.</p>
  <note>
    <p>Maps are considered to be experimental during Erlang/OTP R17.</p>
  </note>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>List</title>
    <p>A list is a compound data type with a variable number of terms.</p>
    <pre>
[Term1,...,TermN]</pre>
    <p>Each term <c>Term</c> in the list is called an
      <em>element</em>. The number of elements is said to be
      the <em>length</em> of the list.</p>
    <p>Formally, a list is either the empty list <c>[]</c> or
      consists of a <em>head</em> (first element) and a <em>tail</em>
      (remainder of the list).
      The <em>tail</em> is also a list. The latter can
      be expressed as <c>[H|T]</c>. The notation
      <c>[Term1,...,TermN]</c> above is equivalent with
      the list <c>[Term1|[...|[TermN|[]]]]</c>.</p>
    <p><em>Example:</em></p>
<p><c>[]</c> is a list, thus      <br></br>
<c>[c|[]]</c> is a list, thus      <br></br>
<c>[b|[c|[]]]</c> is a list, thus      <br></br>
<c>[a|[b|[c|[]]]]</c> is a list, or in short <c>[a,b,c]</c></p>

    <p>A list where the tail is a list is sometimes called a <em>proper list</em>. It is allowed to have a list where the tail is not a
      list, for example, <c>[a|b]</c>. However, this type of list is of
      little practical use.</p>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>L1 = [a,2,{c,4}].</input>
[a,2,{c,4}]
2> <input>[H|T] = L1.</input>
[a,2,{c,4}]
3> <input>H.</input>
a
4> <input>T.</input>
[2,{c,4}]
5> <input>L2 = [d|T].</input>
[d,2,{c,4}]
6> <input>length(L1).</input>
3
7> <input>length([]).</input>
0</pre>
    <p>A collection of list processing functions can be found in
      the <seealso marker="stdlib:lists">lists</seealso> manual
      page in STDLIB.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>String</title>
    <p>Strings are enclosed in double quotes ("), but is not a
      data type in Erlang. Instead, a string <c>"hello"</c> is
      shorthand for the list <c>[$h,$e,$l,$l,$o]</c>, that is,
      <c>[104,101,108,108,111]</c>.</p>
    <p>Two adjacent string literals are concatenated into one. This is
      done in the compilation, thus, does not incur any runtime overhead.</p>
      <p><em>Example:</em></p>
    <pre>
"string" "42"</pre>
    <p>is equivalent to</p>
    <pre>
"string42"</pre>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Record</title>
    <p>A record is a data structure for storing a fixed number of
      elements. It has named fields and is similar to a struct in C.
      However, a record is not a true data type. Instead, record
      expressions are translated to tuple expressions during
      compilation. Therefore, record expressions are not understood by
      the shell unless special actions are taken. For details, see the
      <seealso marker="stdlib:shell">shell(3)</seealso> manual
      page in STDLIB).</p>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
-module(person).
-export([new/2]).

-record(person, {name, age}).

new(Name, Age) ->
    #person{name=Name, age=Age}.

1> <input>person:new(ernie, 44).</input>
{person,ernie,44}</pre>
    <p>Read more about records in
      <seealso marker="records">Records</seealso>. More examples can be
      found in <seealso marker="doc/programming_examples:records">
      Programming Examples</seealso>.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Boolean</title>
    <p>There is no Boolean data type in Erlang. Instead the atoms
      <c>true</c> and <c>false</c> are used to denote Boolean values.</p>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>2 =&lt; 3</input>.
true
2> <input>true or false</input>.
true</pre>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Escape Sequences</title>
    <p>Within strings and quoted atoms, the following escape sequences
      are recognized:</p>
    <table>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle"><em>Sequence</em></cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle"><em>Description</em></cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\b</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Backspace</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\d</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Delete</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\e</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Escape</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\f</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Form feed</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\n</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Newline</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\r</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Carriage return</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\s</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Space</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\t</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Tab</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\v</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Vertical tab</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\XYZ, \YZ, \Z</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Character with octal
        representation XYZ, YZ or Z</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\xXY</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Character with hexadecimal
        representation XY</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\x{X...}</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Character with hexadecimal
        representation; X... is one or more hexadecimal characters</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\^a...\^z        <br></br>
\^A...\^Z</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Control A to control Z</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\'</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Single quote</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\"</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Double quote</cell>
      </row>
      <row>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">\\</cell>
        <cell align="left" valign="middle">Backslash</cell>
      </row>
      <tcaption>Recognized Escape Sequences</tcaption>
    </table>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Type Conversions</title>
    <p>There are a number of BIFs for type conversions.</p>
    <p><em>Examples:</em></p>
    <pre>
1> <input>atom_to_list(hello).</input>
"hello"
2> <input>list_to_atom("hello").</input>
hello
3> <input>binary_to_list(&lt;&lt;"hello">>).</input>
"hello"
4> <input>binary_to_list(&lt;&lt;104,101,108,108,111>>).</input>
"hello"
5> <input>list_to_binary("hello").</input>
&lt;&lt;104,101,108,108,111>>
6> <input>float_to_list(7.0).</input>
"7.00000000000000000000e+00"
7> <input>list_to_float("7.000e+00").</input>
7.0
8> <input>integer_to_list(77).</input>
"77"
9> <input>list_to_integer("77").</input>
77
10> <input>tuple_to_list({a,b,c}).</input>
[a,b,c]
11> <input>list_to_tuple([a,b,c]).</input>
{a,b,c}
12> <input>term_to_binary({a,b,c}).</input>
&lt;&lt;131,104,3,100,0,1,97,100,0,1,98,100,0,1,99>>
13> <input>binary_to_term(&lt;&lt;131,104,3,100,0,1,97,100,0,1,98,100,0,1,99>>).</input>
{a,b,c}
14> <input>binary_to_integer(&lt;&lt;"77">>).</input>
77
15> <input>integer_to_binary(77).</input>
&lt;&lt;"77">>
16> <input>float_to_binary(7.0).</input>
&lt;&lt;"7.00000000000000000000e+00">>
17> <input>binary_to_float(&lt;&lt;"7.000e+00">>).</input>
7.0</pre>
  </section>
</chapter>