members... types... in DotNet

Halo again... am writting a bit more on .Net variables and data types this time. Its the bits and pieces of programming that makes up a good application. Banking, National Registration, E-Commerce, E-Mails or even computer games at the most basic level uses variables. In any programming language, the result of the application or algorithm requires some user input.... it can be your credit card details, addresses, calculations, pictures, movies, music and much more.

To process or keep this information a smart programmer must know how to manipulate the data correctly. I mean... almost all applications need data to run... and this data comes in many forms and shapes. At the end it all boils down to bits and bytes for the processor to run.

The .NET Framework provides a robust, strongly typed data system. Different types represent integer numbers, floating-point numbers, Boolean values, characters, and strings.

In Visual Basic .NET, Option Strict On enables type checking at design time and prevents type mismatch bugs that could be time-consuming to find otherwise. Whenever possible, you should develop with Option Strict On.

The .NET types provide built-in functionality specific to the type. The Parse method is implemented by all the built-in value types and is useful for converting strings to value types. The String class exposes several useful functions that allow you to easily manipulate strings.

Some samples of number types:

System.Byte - Byte - 8-bit unsigned integer (0 to 255)

System.Int16 - Short - 16-bit signed integer (-32768 to 32767)

System.Int32 - Integer - 32-bit signed integer

System.Int64 - Long - 64-bit signed integer

These store values which are numbers and some of them can be signed (that means positive and negative).