Strings are great, they can represent any letter, including numbers. However a computer doesn’t understand the contents or meaning of a string.

We can write a number like this using a string "3"

However, imagine we want to do some maths, such as counting chickens. In this case we want the character "3" to be the number 3.

In this case we don’t wrap the number in quotes.

count = 3

This assigns the value 3 to the variable called count

Now that we have made it clear it is a number, the computer can use the value.

Lets see this with an example.

We’ve seen the + instruction combine two strings into one, however, if we use two numbers instead, the + instruction adds two numbers together.

It has the same output, the letters are printed to screen.

However, they have different meanings

The + instruction depends on the type of data. If the input is numbers, their values get added together.

We can add numbers together, and we can add strings together, but what about strings and numbers together?

We get an appropriate error, that we cannot add different types using the + instruction.