Complex data type

Some programming languages provide a complex data type for complex number storage and arithmetic as a built-in (primitive) data type. Some programming languages provide a complex data type for complex number storage and arithmetic as a built-in (primitive) data type. In some programming environments the term complex data type (in contrast to primitive data types) is a synonym for the composite data type. A complex variable or value is usually represented as a pair of floating point numbers. Languages that support a complex data type usually provide special syntax for building such values, and extend the basic arithmetic operations ('+', '−', '×', '÷') to act on them. These operations are usually translated by the compiler into a sequence of floating-point machine instructions or into library calls. Those languages may also provide support for other operations, such as formatting, equality testing, etc. As in mathematics, those languages often interpret a floating-point value as equivalent to a complex value with a zero imaginary part.