Data Types

There are four basic types of data in BackTalk: numbers, text, booleans, and references.

1. Numbers

A number in BackTalk is pretty much what you would expect. For instance, 5 is the number five. You can also do math in BackTalk, and it looks much like you're used to. Try out some math in the example below. Multiplication looks like 2 * 3 and division looks like 9 / 3.

-- SimpleExample

(2 * 2) + (4 + 8) / 3

2. Booleans

There are two booleans: true, and false. Like numbers, there is a kind of math that you can do with booleans.

• You can use ! to negate them. ! true is the same as false. Notice the space after the ! this is required in BackTalk.
• You can also use & (which is called "and") to check if the first and second booleans are both true. true & true is true, true & false is not.
• You can also use | (which is called "or") to check if either the first or the second boolean is true. true | true is true, but false | false is not.
• Finally, you can combine !, &, and | together to make something as complicated as you want! Try it out in the example below.

-- SimpleExample

true &! false | true

3. Text

Text is a bunch of letters and numbers and things like that. In BackTalk, text looks like "this". Notice that it begins and ends with quotation marks. Try editing the text in the example below.

-- SimpleExample

"wow!!!"

4. References

What is a references? A reference is like a name. A name tells you which thing I'm talking about, but it isn't the thing itself. If I say, "Suzy is an excellent computer programmer," then you know who I'm talking about, because I used Suzy's name. References in BackTalk work the same way. A reference looks like this:

$suzy

or this

$my_best_friend

or any other bunch of letters and underscores, as long as it starts with a $.

In the following example, you can use a reference to pick a friend to describe. Try switching $suzy for $harry or $bingo in the example below:

-- SimpleExample

$suzy