algebraic data type

English

Etymology

So named because they have algebraic properties with respect to their cardinality similar to normal integers.

Noun

algebraic data type (plural algebraic data types)

1. (programming, type theory) A data type formed by combining other types.

   Synonym: ADT

   Hyponyms: enumeration, record, tuple

   • 2021, Martin Odersky et al., chapter 19, in Programming in Scala, 5th edition, Artima, →ISBN:

     Generally, algebraic data types represent sums of products, where the cases form the alternatives of a sum type, and each case represents a product type that can be constructed from zero to many constitutent types. An EDT is a special case of ADT where each product type is a singleton.

Further reading

• algebraic data type on Wikipedia.Wikipedia