Whereas the underlying implementation of the string composite type is typically implemented using an array data structure (we’ll cover data structures shortly).

If we consider a composite type, such as a ‘string’, it describes a data structure which contains a sequence of char scalars (characters), and as such is referred to as being a ‘composite’ type. pass-by-value semantics) and this contrasts with ‘reference types’ (e.g. A primitive is typically used to represent a ‘value type’ (e.g. NOTE: You might also have heard of a ‘primitive’ type, which is sometimes confused with the ‘scalar’ type.

Abstract: data type that is defined by its behaviour (tuple, set, stack, queue, graph etc).

Composite: any data type (struct, array, string etc.) composed of scalars or composite types (also referred to as a ‘compound’ type).Scalar: basic building block (boolean, integer, float, char etc.).Want to be up and running quickly with Python? Get started here with my bookĪ data type is an attribute of data which tells the compiler (or interpreter) how the programmer intends to use the data.

Use of basic data structures