Types

Balzac is a statically typed language, i.e. the type of each variable is determined at compile time.

The table below shows the list of types

List of types and examples

Type

Description

Example

int

64-bit signed number

42

string

A string of characters

"foo"

'bar'

boolean

Either true or false value

true false

hash

A string of bytes in hexadecimal representation

hash:c51b66bced5e4491001bd702669770dccf440982

key

A Bitcoin private key in the Wallet Input Format [1]

key:KzKP2XkH93yuXTLFPMYE89WvviHSmgKF3CjYKfpkZn6qij1pWuMW

address

A Bitcoin address in the Base58 format [2]

address:1GT4D2wfwu7gJguvEdZXAKcENyPxinQqpz

pubkey

A raw public key as hexadecimal string

pubkey:032b6cb7aa033a063dd01e20a971d6d4f85eb27ad0793b...

signature

A raw signature as hexadecimal string

sig:30450221008319289238e5ddb1aefa26db06a5f40b8a212d1...

transaction

A Bitcoin transaction, as hex payload or txid

tx:0100000001cab433976b8a3dfeeb82fe6a10a59381d2f91341...

txid:0d7748674c8395cf288500b1c64330605fec54ae0dfdb22a...

Hint

Type Coercion

Type coercion is an automatic type conversion by the compiler. In other words, some types can be safely converted to other ones:

  • key can be used within expressions/statements where a type pubkey or address is expected;

  • pubkey can be used where a type address is expected.

Hint

Type Inference

Types can be declared explicitly (left box) or omitted (right box) if the type checker can statically infer them.

const n:int = 42

const n = 42

References