Charcteristics of data types and data structures relevant to selected software tools

Question 1

Character

Answer 1

A character data type holds a single letter, number or symbol and is usually stored in 2 bytes of memory

Question 2

Text(string)

Answer 2

A text data type consists of a string of characters. The amount of memory used to store the string depends on its length (2 bytes x length of string)

Question 3

Integer

Answer 3

An integer is a whole number which can be used for mathematical calculations. An integer is usually stored in 4 bytes of memory

Question 4

Floating point (or decimal)

Answer 4

A floating point number is a number with a fractional part or decimal which can take up to 12 bytes of memory. A floating point number is split into two parts:the mantissa and exponent

Question 5

Boolean

Answer 5

A data type which holds only two possible values and only requires 1 byte memory

Question 6

Array

Answer 6

An array is a collection of data items generally of the same data type. Each item in the array is allocated an address

Question 7

Record

Answer 7

A record is a collection of data items of different data types. Each element of a record is called a field

Question 8

File

Answer 8

A file data structure can hold numerous data items, arrays or records