Difference between revisions of "Category:Variables"

Category:Variables (edit)

Revision as of 04:27, 17 September 2006

859 bytes added , 04:27, 17 September 2006

all number variables actually floats

Anonymous user

imported>DragoonWraith

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-There are a few types of variables. Although you can [[Declaring_variables|declare a variable]] to be [[Variable_types:_shortint|Short]] or [[Variable_types:_longint|Long]], both produce the same result.
+There are a few types of variables. Most store numbers, but the special [[Reference Variable]] stores something in the game world so you can run functions on it later.
-[[Variable_types:_shortint|short]]	varNameShort
+Although you can [[Declaring_variables|declare a variable]] to be [[Short Integer|Short]], [[Long Integer|Long]], or [[Floating Point|Float]], all three will act like a [[Floating Point|float]].
-[[Variable_types:_longint|long]]	varNameLong
+This is significant, as [[Floating Point|floats]] have accuracy issues at very high or very low values. When dealing with [[Short Integer|shorts]], this is irrelevant as their range is within the float's "accurate" range. On the other hand, [[Long Integer|longs]] may be expected to be accurate outside of the [[Floating Point|float]]'s range, and they will not be.
-[[Variable_types:_floating_point|float]]	varNameFloat
+To illustrate, the sizes of numbers that should be storable in each type:
+<pre>short      -32,768 to 32,767
-[[Variable_types:_reference_variables|ref]]	varNameRef
-Sizes of numbers that can be stored in each type:
-<pre>
-short      -32,768 to 32,767
 long       -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647
-float      1.18E-38 to 3.40E38 (precision = 7 digits)
+float      1.18E-38 to 3.40E38 (precision = 7 digits)</pre>
+As you can see, a [[Long Integer|long]] might be expected to have up to 10 digits, but a [[Floating Point|float]] will not accurately display more than 7 (it can, however, accurately show a number of less than eight digits followed by twenty or more zeros, if necessary), and so a [[Long Integer|long]] will '''not''' behave as expected because it is actually a [[Floating Point|float]]. See the [[Floating Point|float article]] for more information on floats' accuracy, and see [[Talk:Long Integer|Long's Talk page]] for details on this discovery.
-ref        an object reference</pre>
 [[Category:Scripting]]
 [[Category:Commands]]
 [[Category:Functions]]