Data Types in Querix 4GL

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Data Types

You have to declare the data type of these 4GL objects:

variables,
form-only fields,
formal arguments used in functions or reports (they cannot be of ARRAY data type),
values returned by any functions.

Below, you can find the list of data types supported by Querix 4GL and Lycia (in the alphabetical order):

data types	synonyms	description
ARRAY		stores sets of values of any single 4GL data type. The upped bound for the number of array elements must be set
BIGINT		stores 8-byte integer values in the range −(2⁶³ −1) to 2⁶³ −1
BYTE		stores binary data of any kind, up to 2³¹ bytes long
BOOLEAN	BOOL	provides a simple Boolean type, variable of this data type can be either TRUE or FALSE
CHAR	CHARACTER	stores character strings up to 65,534 bytes long
CURSOR		stores information about a cursor
DATE		stores specific calendar dates
DATETIME		stores specific calendar dates together with time values
DECIMAL	DEC, NUMERIC	stores fixed-point numbers with a specified precision and number of decimal places floating-point numbers, with a specified precision but with undefined number of decimal places
DYNAMIC ARRAY		stores sets of values of any single 4GL data type. It has no obligatory upper bound for the number of its elements
FLOAT	DOUBLE PRECISION	stores floating-point numbers with up to 14 significant digits
FORM		stores information about a form
INTEGER	INT	stores any whole numbers within the range -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647
INTERVAL		stores a defined period of time (hours and minutes or months and years)
MONEY		stores currency units with definable precision and number of decimal places
PREPARED		stores information about a prepared statement
RECORD		stores an ordered set of values which can be made up of any combination of data types
SMALLFLOAT	REAL	stores floating-point numbers, with up to 16 significant digits
SMALLINT		stores whole numbers within the range of -32,767 to 32,767
STRING		provides a variant holder for the character strings
TEXT		stores character strings up to 2³¹ bytes long
TINYINT		stores whole numbers within the range of -128 to 127
VARCHAR		stores character strings up to 65534 characters long
WINDOW		stores information about a 4GL window

All the data types except for the RECORD, ARRAY and DYNAMIC ARRAY data types correspond to the built-in SQL data types. The data types of Querix 4GL can be regarded as a set of the SQL data types recognized by Querix 4GL, with some restrictions:

SQL data type SERIAL cannot be used in Querix 4GL statements, you should substitute INTEGER for SERIAL data type in the statements that are not SQL statements.
NCHAR and NVARCHAR data types are recognized by Querix 4GL. However, they are mainly used to work with the database columns of VCHAR and NVARCHAR data types.
Querix 4GL does not recognize the BITVARYING, BLOB, CLOB, DISTINCT, LIST, MULTISET, OPAQUE, REFERENCE, ROW, SET, and the user-defined data types of Informix database servers.

All data types can be divided into four groups:

Simple data types (including numeric, character, and time data types)
Large data types (TEXT and BYTE)
Structured data types (RECORD, ARRAY and DYNAMIC ARRAY)
Object data types (CURSOR, FORM, PREPARED, WINDOW)

Data Values

Data values in Querix 4GL must belong to some data type. Data type is a 4GL category that describes which type of data is stored in a variable or a column, etc. The types of operations that can be performed on a value depend on its data type.

Some data types are compatible; this means that a value of one data type can be converted to another data type.