Programming Fundamentals/Nothing Data Type

Overview
A nothing data type is a feature of some programming languages which allow the setting of a special value to indicate a missing or uninitialized value rather than using the value 0 (zero).

Discussion
Most programming languages support the use of a reserved word or words to represent missing, uninitialized, or invalid values.

Key Terms

 * NaN
 * Reserved word used to indicate a non-numeric value in a numeric variable.


 * Null
 * Reserved word used to represent a missing value or invalid value.