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Guile Reference Manual

21. Simple Generic Data Types

This chapter describes those of Guile's simple data types which are primarily used for their role as items of generic data. By simple we mean data types that are not primarily used as containers to hold other data -- i.e. pairs, lists, vectors and so on. For the documentation of such compound data types, see 22. Compound Data Types.

One of the great strengths of Scheme is that there is no straightforward distinction between "data" and "functionality". For example, Guile's support for dynamic linking could be described

• either in a "data-centric" way, as the behaviour and properties of the "dynamically linked object" data type, and the operations that may be applied to instances of this type

• or in a "functionality-centric" way, as the set of procedures that constitute Guile's support for dynamic linking, in the context of the module system.

The contents of this chapter are, therefore, a matter of judgment. By generic, we mean to select those data types whose typical use as data in a wide variety of programming contexts is more important than their use in the implementation of a particular piece of functionality. The last section of this chapter provides references for all the data types that are documented not here but in a "functionality-centric" way elsewhere in the manual.

21.1 Booleans		True/false values.
21.2 Numerical data types
21.3 Characters		New character names.
21.4 Strings		Special things about strings.
21.5 Regular Expressions		Pattern matching and substitution.
21.6 Symbols
21.7 Keywords		Self-quoting, customizable display keywords.
21.8 "Functionality-Centric" Data Types		"Functionality-centric" data types.