ISO/IEC 11404:2007
Information technology -- General-Purpose Datatypes (GPD)
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ISO/IEC 11404:2007 expressly distinguishes three notions of datatype:
- the conceptual, or abstract, notion of a datatype, which characterizes the datatype by its nominal values and properties;
- the structural notion of a datatype, which characterizes the datatype as a conceptual organization of specific component datatypes with specific functionalities; and
- the implementation notion of a datatype, which characterizes the datatype by defining the rules for representation of the datatype in a given environment.
ISO/IEC 11404:2007 defines the abstract notions of many commonly used primitive and non-primitive datatypes which possess the structural notion of atomicity. ISO/IEC 11404:2007 does not define all atomic datatypes; it defines only those which are common in programming languages and software interfaces. ISO/IEC 11404:2007 defines structural notions for the specification of other non-primitive datatypes, and provides a means by which datatypes not defined herein can be defined structurally in terms of the GPDs defined herein.
ISO/IEC 11404:2007 defines a partial terminology for implementation notions of datatypes and provides for the use of this terminology in the definition of datatypes. The primary purpose of this terminology is to identify common implementation notions associated with datatypes and to distinguish them from conceptual notions.
ISO/IEC 11404:2007 specifies the required elements of mappings between the GPDs and the datatypes of some other language. ISO/IEC 11404:2007 does not specify the precise form of a mapping, but rather the required information content of a mapping.
