Numbers - Manhunter07/MFL GitHub Wiki

Numbers are numeric integer or real values that support arithmetic operations. They are floating-point values with an extended precision whose value range is represented by the constants MinValue and MaxValue. Numbers support three ways of notation: Decimal, scientific and hexadecimal, see below for a detailed overview and explaination.

Decimals

Decimals use the standard numeric notation, common in most programming languages. They start with a digit from 0 to 9 and may contain a dot separating the integer from the fractional part. Decimals may also use the scientific notation with a ten's exponent. The following code demonstrates how decimal numbers can be used:

121 \represents 121.0\
5.79 \represents 5.79\
28. \represents 28.0 as trailing zeros in fractional parts are optional\
8e2 \represents 800.0\
2.61e-4 \represents 0.000261\

Hexadecimals

Hexadecimals are numbers to the base 16. Like most common languges, MFL supports their notation using a special indicator. They are prepended by a dollar sign ($), similar to Pascal. Hexadecimals in MFL follow the same syntax and limitations as those in Pascal, including not supporting fractional parts or the scientific notation. They contain a number of digits from 0 to 9 and from a to f. Char casing is ignored, but the convention recommends the use of lowercase numbers. Just like normal decimal numbers, hexadecimals are internally stored as floating-point numbers with no special treatment. To convert an integer number back to its hexadecimal string representation, use the Hex function from the System package.

Types

See also: Numeric types

There are different numeric types available to be used as type constraints for function parameters or for different purposes. The most generic one is Number, supporting any numeric values including the special values of NaN and Inf. There are also different numneric type constructors available, including integer, rangeint and sizeint. Other more generic type constructors like range or enum can be used with numeric arguments, too.

Operators

Type check

Like any other data type, numbers support the type compatibility check operator (?:). It returns True on Number, but also any other type that supports the respected value(s).