> I know this is probably one of those "weird" questions, but
> how exactly does the CI keep track of variable types?  (e.g. "_FOO" is
> an integer, while "_BAR" is a string?)

We have one variable table per job/session.  There is a field in this table
that indicates the variable type.

> and does anyone one know if there are plans to add more variable
> types than string, integer, and boolean?  (Or is the idea to leave that
for
> other scripting languages such as Java, Perl, Python, REBOL, etc.?)

I'd personally like to add LONGs so we can do 64 bit math, and more
importantly
so that the CI can provide information about files greater than 4GB in size.
However, that is not in the plans right now.  Other types, like real,
arrays,
lists, etc. have been discussed but again there are no plans.

regards,
Jeff Vance, CSY