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)