In
computer programming, a value is an item of
data in some location of a
program's
memory.
A value can be numeric, i.e. an integer or floating point number, or it can be a character, a string, a boolean, a pointer or any other data type that can be used by the particular programming language used. Numeric values in a program usually represent quantities
in the real world; character or string values represent textual information; pointer values usually contain memory addresses of other data.
Values can be constants, used in assignments, such as:
int rpm = 3600;
(3600 is a constant value being assigned to variable rpm)
or in
expressions, such as:
volume = 4 / 3 * Math.PI * exp(radius, 3);
(4 and 3 are constants, and so (probably) is Math.PI, used in the calculation of a value for volume)
or they can be stored in
variables, as in:
force = mass * acceleration;
(Variable force is being assigned a new value, the product of the values of variables mass
and acceleration.)
The
content of a variable is often referred to synonymously as its value.