There are certain functions expecting data values to be passed to them. To be able to do that in a uniform way, RAAPI expects data values to be passed as strings. The following table explains how values of different data types are converted to strings:
Type |
How encoded |
String |
as is (we assume that UNICODE characters ‘INFORMATION SEPARATOR ONE’, ‘INFORMATION SEPARATOR TWO’, ‘INFORMATION SEPARATOR THREE’, ‘INFORMATION SEPARATOR FOUR’, ‘CANCEL’, ‘END OF TEXT’, and ‘NULL’ are not used in String values) |
Integer |
converted to a string using the decimal notation (with a “-” sign in the beginning for negative integers) |
Real |
converted to a string using the decimal notation and a dot (“.”) as a decimal point |
Boolean |
either the string value “true”, or “false” (all letters are small) |
void or null (to indicate no value) |
a string consisting of a single Unicode character U+0018 (CANCEL); this value is essential to distinguish between null values and empty strings, when calling methods |
a collection of some type from above |
each collection element is encoded according to the rules above; elements are delimited by the UNICODE character U+001F (INFORMATION SEPARATOR ONE) |