Exploring data structures in F#

Data structures are, as Ralph William Gosper, Jr. of Lisp fame calls them, little programming languages. A data structure provides the means for the organization, and storage of the data. Like other programming languages, F# comes with several built-in data structures and the capability to build new and custom abstract data types. The built-in data types in F# include the fundamental .NET types such as integer, unsigned integer, decimal, short, long, unsigned short, unsigned long, byte, signed byte, bool, double, float, native int, unsigned native int, char, and string. The details can be seen in the following table figure which describes the .NET data types and examples of their corresponding F# declarations:

Beside these fundamental types, F# also provides a variety of advanced built-in data structures including lists, sequences, tuples, records, option types, and unions. In this chapter, we will discuss these types in greater detail and then discuss their...