Variables

A variable, in its purest mathematical form, is something that changes. In computer science, a variable is a location in memory that holds data of some kind, or type, such as an integer (whole number), a string (word/collection of characters), or boolean (either true or false). These values can be changed or kept untouched, but the fact that we can store information for later use in our programs is one of the most profound and powerful in computer science.

While we continue development of our own educational articles, we recommend checking out this article on variables more generally and this other article by the same authors that explains data types, the categories into which different variables fall.