User guide > Variables > Variable types

There are many types of variable in the CL. Raw data items can only be referred to in Data Stages:

col data location (column) containing up to 12 of the codes VX0123456789 or a single character, for

example 'A'

field a range of one or more data locations containing numeric or character data (or blanks)

spreadfield a range of one or more data locations with a repeat count in subsequent columns containing multi-coded

data as integer values.

colbin binary integers containing punch combinations representing numeric values 0-4095

There is no limit on the number of cols, fields and colbins used in a CL script. Raw data values are moved to IDF variables for use in any stage:

svar single value. May be the response to a question of the form "Which one of the following...". Each svar may

have up to 30000 responses of which only one will be true for each questionnaire.

mvar multiple value. May be the responses to a question of the form "Which of the following...". Each mvar may have

up to 30000 responses.

ivar integer value. May be the response to a question of the form "How many..." where the answer is a whole

number of up to 9 or 15 digits.

wvar weight value. May be the response to a question of the form "How many..." where the answer is not a whole

number of up to 20 digits.

cvar character value. Typically verbatim text or address text.

In data stages you may have arrays of the first four, see ARRAY TEMP command.

Up to 32000 variables may be present in any stage.