# About Variant Notation

KLayout employs a certain notation to enter variant types. Variant types are data items which are either numerical or text information and are used specifically for property names and values. In that case, the type of information is important, and a simple edit box won't be sufficient to enter the information. For example, "1" could either be a text "1" or the number 1. To solve that issue, KLayout uses the following notation:

Notation | Description | Example
--- | --- | ---
#... | An integer value | #17
##... | A floating-point value | ##0.5
'...' or "..." | A text string which can contain any character. You can use the backslash character to escape quotes if you want to use quotes in your text string. To use the backslash character inside the text, use a double backslash (\\). | 'A text' 'A \'quoted text\'' 'A single \\ character'
A word (letters, digits and the underscore) | Taken as a text string | NAME