Recursive and Algebraic Data Types

Question 1

What are the two kinds of types, scalar and composite?

Answer 1

Scalar type is a type whose values
- occupy a fixed amount of memory, and
- are atomic, that is, a value is not subdivided further in any way.

Composite type is a type whose values are composed of simpler component values. That is, it is an aggregation of other simpler types.

Question 2

What is a type that is not defined in terms of any other type, and what are the Java examples?

Answer 2

Primitive types (basic building blocks for other data types)
In Java: int, short, long, byte, char, float, double, boolean

Question 3

What is the simplest data type: exactly two values (true, false)

Answer 3

Boolean type

Question 4

What is the type of data that consist of numbers, which can be computed mathematically with various standard operators +, -, *, /

Answer 4

Numeric type

Question 5

What is the type where the values belong to a finite range of integer values?

Answer 5

Ordinal type

All integer types are ordinal
Characters are ordinal
Booleans are ordinal

Question 6

What is the type that can be constructed from the language’s primitive data types and other of this type, and what are examples of them?

Answer 6

Composite type

Record (or union), Array, Set, List, map, Pointer (or reference)