Data types are the base component in C/AL (Client/server Application Language) programming. Most of the data types are equivalent to the data types used in other programming language. Boolean, integer, decimal, dates, and strings are the most used data types in C/AL programming.
As developers, our job is to build a business tool that will manipulate the data input by users and make sure that data stored in tables is meaningful. Most of this data will be of the decimal, string, and date data types. NAV is, after all, a financial system at heart. At its most basic level, it cares about three things: "How much money?" (decimal), "What was it used for?" (string), and "When was it used?" (date).
The recipes in this chapter are very basic, but they will help you to understand the basics of C/AL coding. All recipes are accompanied by actual C/AL code from NAV objects.