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In computer science, a literal is a textual representation (notation) of a value as it is written in source code. [1] [2] Almost all programming languages have notations for atomic values such as integers, floating-point numbers, and strings, and usually for Booleans and characters; some also have notations for elements of enumerated types and compound values such as arrays, records, and objects.
In computer science, an integer literal is a kind of literal for an integer whose value is directly represented in source code.For example, in the assignment statement x = 1, the string 1 is an integer literal indicating the value 1, while in the statement x = 0x10 the string 0x10 is an integer literal indicating the value 16, which is represented by 10 in hexadecimal (indicated by the 0x prefix).
Numeric literals in Python are of the normal sort, e.g. 0, -1, 3.4, 3.5e-8. Python has arbitrary-length integers and automatically increases their storage size as necessary. Prior to Python 3, there were two kinds of integral numbers: traditional fixed size integers and "long" integers of arbitrary size.
Dynamically valued constants originated as a language feature with ALGOL 68. [3] Studies of Ada and C++ code have shown that dynamically valued constants are used infrequently, typically for 1% or less of objects, when they could be used much more, as some 40–50% of local, non-class objects are actually invariant once created.
The term magic number or magic constant refers to the anti-pattern of using numbers directly in source code. This has been referred to as breaking one of the oldest rules of programming, dating back to the COBOL , FORTRAN and PL/1 manuals of the 1960s. [ 1 ]
Constant folding is the process of recognizing and evaluating constant expressions at compile time rather than computing them at runtime. Terms in constant expressions are typically simple literals, such as the integer literal 2, but they may also be variables whose values are known at compile time. Consider the statement:
Python. The use of the triple-quotes to comment-out lines of source, does not actually form a comment. [19] The enclosed text becomes a string literal, which Python usually ignores (except when it is the first statement in the body of a module, class or function; see docstring). Elixir
The standard type hierarchy of Python 3. In computer science and computer programming, a data type (or simply type) is a collection or grouping of data values, usually specified by a set of possible values, a set of allowed operations on these values, and/or a representation of these values as machine types. [1]