Term to represent all possible values of a variable

Question

Is there a term to represent a set of all possible values a variable can assume?

Analogy:
In mathematics a domain of a function is a set of values a function is defined on (function can take as an argument).

Examples:

• A variable of type UInt16 can hold values in range [0-65536).
• Completion status (represented by a double value) can hold a value in range [0-100].
• Gender (represented by an Enum) can hold one of { Male, Female }.

Q:
What is a term to describe all possible values a variable can (contextually) assume?

Basically need a short version of "set of values for a variable". I have seen term type being used to describe such a range, but Type often encompasses other bits of information (e.g. a name, operations, module).

Answer 1

I don't know of programming-specific jargon with that meaning, but "domain" itself seems like a pretty good one...

[EDIT] Read the comments to this, and I actually prefer "range".

Answer 2

• value set
• domain
• value range

Answer 3

I would just call it the "range", or "range of values".

Answer 4

I don't know if this is the exact terminology (if it even has one) but I have always referred to it as a range or in the case of enums options.

Answer 5

Domain would be the math term.

Answer 6

Range is the proper term, as in "this method will return values within the range of..."; "The expected range of this variable is:..." etc.

Answer 7

For atomic types, the type itself describes the range (e.g. int has a range of -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647).

Anything that is a custom type may or may not have a range because custom types (e.g. struct, class, interface) are composite types that can be made up of atomic or other custom types.

The definition of a type will also vary between different languages.

The long and short of it is generally you will only be able to apply a range to atomic types based on a specific language.

Answer 8

It depends on the type system. In some programming laguages, a "string" can hold a sequence of characters, and an "unsigned int" can only hold positive whole numbers. In others like python, a variable can hold anything at all because it doesn't have a certain type.

Answer 9

I've also heard "value space" as a term for this.

Answer 10

Our quants here say it is called a value set. They get paid tons of money to create them so I believe them!

Answer 11

You may think of a variable as containing an element that is a member of a set of numbers.

As such, domain is a good descriptor for the possible values of this set.

Range is also often used in a similar context. Here we talk of the range of a function, as the set of values the function can take on. Since a variable always contains the result of some expression or computation, range clearly makes sense too.

Either is appropriate in the proper context.