Editing C-- (section)

==Type system==
The C-- [[type system]] is designed to reflect constraints imposed by hardware rather than conventions imposed by higher-level languages. A value stored in a register or memory may have only one type: [[Bit array|bit-vector]]. However, bit-vector is a [[Type polymorphism|polymorphic]] type which comes in several widths, e.g. {{mono|bits8}}, {{mono|bits32}}, or {{mono|bits64}}. A separate 32-or-64 bit family of floating-point types is supported. In addition to the bit-vector type, C-- provides a boolean type {{mono|bool}}, which can be computed by expressions and used for control flow but cannot be stored in a register or memory. As in an assembly language, any higher type discipline, such as distinctions between signed, unsigned, float, and pointer, is imposed by the C-- operators or other syntactic constructs. C-- is not type-checked, nor does it enforce or check the calling convention.<ref name=v2/>{{rp|28}}

C-- version 2 removes the distinction between bit-vector and floating-point types. These types can be annotated with a string "kind" tag to distinguish, among other things, a variable's integer vs float typing and its storage behavior (global or local). The former is useful on targets that have separate registers for integer and floating-point values. Special types for pointers and the native word were introduced, although they are mapped to a bit-vector with a target-dependent length.<ref name="v2" />{{rp|10}}