Literals

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Literals serve to write values of any data type.

Table 61.1. Literals

Literal	Description	Declaration syntax	Example
integer	digits representing integer number	[0-9]+	95623
long integer	digits representing integer numbers with absolute value even greater than 2³¹, but less than 2⁶³	[0-9]+L?	257L, or 9562307813123123
hexadecimal integer	digits and letters representing integer number in hexadecimal form	0x[0-9A-F]+	0xA7B0
octal integer	digits representing integer number in octal form	0[0-7]*	0644
number (double)	floating point number represented by 64bits in double precision format	[0-9]+.[0-9]+	456.123
decimal	digits representing a decimal number	[0-9]+.[0-9]+D	123.456D
double quoted string	string value/literal enclosed in double quotes; escaped characters [\n,\r,\t, \\, \", \b] get translated into corresponding control chars	"...anything except ["]..."	"hello\tworld\n\r"
single quoted string	string value/literal enclosed in single quotes; only one escaped character [\'] gets translated into corresponding char [']	'...anything except [']...'	'hello\tworld\n\r'
list of literals	list of literals where individual literals can also be other lists/maps/records	[ <any literal> (, <any literal>)* ]	[10, 'hello', "world", 0x1A, 2008-01-01 ], [ [ 1 , 2 ] ] , [ 3 , 4 ] ]
date	date value	this mask is expected: yyyy-MM-dd	2008-01-01
datetime	datetime value	this mask is expected: yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss	2008-01-01 18:55:00

Important

	Important
You cannot use any literal for `bytearray` data type. If you want to write a `bytearray` value, you must use any of the conversion functions that return `bytearray` and aply it on an argument value. For information on these conversion functions see Conversion Functions

You cannot use any literal for bytearray data type. If you want to write a bytearray value, you must use any of the conversion functions that return bytearray and aply it on an argument value.

For information on these conversion functions see Conversion Functions

Important

	Important
Remember that if you need to assign decimal value to a decimal field, you should use decimal literal. Otherwise, such number would not be decimal, it would be a double number! For example: Decimal value to a decimal field (correct and accurate) `// correct - assign decimal value to decimal field` `myRecord.decimalField = 123.56d;` Double value to a decimal field (possibly inaccurate) `// possibly inaccurate - assign double value to decimal field` `myRecord.decimalField = 123.56;` The latter might produce inaccurate results!

Remember that if you need to assign decimal value to a decimal field, you should use decimal literal. Otherwise, such number would not be decimal, it would be a double number!

For example:

Decimal value to a decimal field (correct and accurate)
// correct - assign decimal value to decimal field
myRecord.decimalField = 123.56d;
Double value to a decimal field (possibly inaccurate)
// possibly inaccurate - assign double value to decimal field
myRecord.decimalField = 123.56;

The latter might produce inaccurate results!

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