The basic types supported in IDL are
| IDL Type | Range of Values |
| short | 215 ... 215 - 1 (16bit) |
| unsigned short | 0... 216 - 1 (16bit) |
| long | -231 ... 231 - 1 (32bit) |
| unsigned long | 0 ... 232 - 1 (32bit) |
| float | IEEE single-precision floating point numbers. |
| double | IEEE double-precision floating point numbers. |
| char | An 8-bit value. |
| boolean | TRUE or FALSE. |
| octet | An 8-bit value that is guaranteed not to undergo |
| any conversion during transmission. | |
| any | The any type allows the specification of values |
| that can express an arbitrary IDL type. | |
The any data type allows you to specify that an attribute value, an operation
parameter, or an operation return value can contain an arbitrary type of value to
be determined at runtime.