Basic Types

Bool – logical values 
Bool is a logical data type that can be either True or False.
Int – fixed-precision integers
Int can contain integers, whole numbers both negative and positive (e.g. -50, 50) up to a certain size which is limited by a fixed amount of memory, hence the term fixed-precision. GHC can hold values in the range of (-2^63) to (2^63 - 1) for Int types - going outside those ranges will yield unexpected results.
Integer – arbitrary-precision integers 
Integer is the same as Int except it does not have a limit to the values it can hold. Performance-wise, it is better to use Int if we know our values will not go out of range, as most computers have built-in hardware for dealing with fixed-precision integers.
Float – single-precision floating-point numbers 
Float can contain decimal numbers (e.g. -1.5, 6.23, 50.0) up to a certain precision which is limited by a fixed amount of memory. The term floating-point comes from this memory limitation, which limits the number of digits (precision) that can come after the decimal point based on the size of the number.
Double – double-precision floating-point numbers
Double is the same type as float, containing decimal numbers but with double the memory assigned for storage, increasing their precision. 
Char – single character
Char is a type for characters – it can hold any Unicode character including control characters such as '\n' (a new line character) or '\t' (tab stop character). Chars must be enclosed in single quotes ' '. 
String – strings of characters
Strings simply hold a string of characters – they are in fact a type [Char] (a list of characters) in Haskell. Strings must be enclosed in double-quotes " ", e.g. "Haskell is great".

Types in Haskell - Previous

Introduction

Next - Types in Haskell

Static Type Check

Last modified 1yr ago

Copy link

Outline

Bool – logical values

Int – fixed-precision integers

Integer – arbitrary-precision integers

Float – single-precision floating-point numbers

Double – double-precision floating-point numbers

Char – single character

String – strings of characters