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ElementaryTypes - Elementary types

Elementary types are types as text or number, which are considered as atomic from a conceptual point of view. It is a matter of taste, what is considered as elementary type. The elementary types listed below should be considered rather as proposal than as a complete list of elementary types.

Also classification types refer to elementary values, but those are considered as separate type category.

Enumarators overview

Enumerator details

  1. any - Any kind of data

    The type refers to any kind of data, where the current type of the data referenced is not known. It simply means that any type of data might be referenced.

    Code: 1
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  2. binary - Binary data

    Binary is a generalized data type for any kind of non-textual and non-numeric data (e.g. movies, sounds, executables etc.).

    Code: 2
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  3. currency - Currency

    Currency is used to express the value of a certain item. The type of currency (Euro, Dollar etc.) is not part of the conceptual type.

    Code: 3
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  4. date - Date

    Date is considered conceptually as elementary value, although it usually consists of day, month and year.

    Code: 4
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  5. name - Name

    The type name typically applies on characteristics, which consists of rather short text information used for identifying object instances in a collection. Usually, non-numeric identifying characteristics are associated with type name.

    Code: 5
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  6. number - Number

    Numbers are used for quantitative characteristics in order to store the quantity of a certain item.

    Code: 6
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  7. text - Text

    Text type provides sufficient capacity for referring to text data of any size. Text is typically used as data type for descriptive characteristics.

    Code: 7
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  8. time - Time

    Time is considered as elementary value from a conceptual point of view, although it usually consists of hour, minute, second etc. The precision of time type depends on the specific subject area, i.e. physicians may consider time values measured in nanoseconds of even more detailed, while the administration of a university is satisfied with time measured in hours and minutes.

    Code: 8
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  9. timestamp - Timestamp

    Timestamps provide a time point including date and time or the number of seconds with any precision after a well-defined 0 time point. Similar to date and time, timestamp is considered as elementary from a conceptual point of view.

    Code: 9
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  10. title - Title

    Title refers to text data with limited size (e.g. 200 characters). Similar to text, title is typically used as data type for descriptive characteristics.

    Code: 10
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  11. yes/no - Yes or No

    Yes/No (Boolean) is used for properties, which are either true or false. Indeed, this is a classification, but conceptual, it is not considered as such and should be supported as elementary type in a terminology model.

    Code: 11
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