Swift More about types
Each variable and procedure parameter in Swift script is strongly typed. Types are used to structure data, to aid in debugging and checking program correctness and to influence how Swift interacts with data.
The image type declared in previous examples is a marker type. Marker types indicate that data for a variable is stored in a single file with no further structure exposed at the Swift script level.
Arrays have been mentioned above, in the arrays section. A code block may be applied to each element of an array using foreach; or individual elements may be references using [] notation.
There are a number of primitive types:
>
| type | contains |
| int | integers |
| string | strings of text |
| float | floating point numbers, that behave the same as Javadoubles |
| boolean | true/false |
Complex types may be defined using the type keyword:
type headerfile;
type voxelfile;
type volume {
headerfile h;
voxelfile v;
}Members of a complex type can be accessed using the . operator:
volume brain;
o = p(brain.h);Sometimes data may be stored in a form that does not fit with Swift’s file-and-site model; for example, data might be stored in an RDBMS on some database server. In that case, a variable can be declared to have external type. This indicates that Swift should use the variable to determine execution dependency, but should not attempt other data management; for example, it will not perform any form of data stage-in or stage-out it will not manage local data caches on sites; and it will not enforce component program atomicity on data output. This can add substantial responsibility to component programs, in exchange for allowing arbitrary data storage and access methods to be plugged in to scripts.
type file;
app (external o) populateDatabase() {
populationProgram;
}
app (file o) analyseDatabase(external i) {
analysisProgram @o;
}
external database;
file result <"results.txt">;
database = populateDatabase();
result = analyseDatabase(database);Some external database is represented by the database variable. The populateDatabase procedure populates the database with some data, and the analyseDatabase procedure performs some subsequent analysis on that database. The declaration of database contains no mapping; and the procedures which use database do not reference them in any way; the description of database is entirely outside of the script. The single assignment and execution ordering rules will still apply though; populateDatabase will always be run before analyseDatabase.