F# for Quantitative Finance

Learning about numerical types in F#

In F#, as in most other modern languages, there is a variety of numerical types. The main reason for this is to enable you, as a programmer, to choose the most appropriate numerical type at any given situation. Sometimes there is no need for a 64-bit integer as 8-bit will be enough for small numbers. Another aspect is memory efficiency and consumption, that is, 64-bit integers will consume eight times as much as 8-bit integers.

The following is a table with the most common numerical types used in the F# code. They come in two main varieties; integers and floating-point numbers:

Type	Description	Example
byte	8-bit unsigned integers	10uy, 0xA0uy
sbyte	8-bit signed integers	10y
int16	16-bit signed integers ...