8B. the basic type (LONG/PTR)
-----------------------------
There's only one basic, non-complex variable type in E, which is the
32bit type LONG. As this is the default type, it may be declared as:

DEF a:LONG             or just:            DEF a

This variable type may hold what's known as CHAR/INT/PTR/LONG types in other
languages. A special variation of LONG is the PTR type. This type
is compatible with LONG, with the only difference that it specifies
to what type it is a pointer. By default, the type LONG is specified
as PTR TO CHAR. Syntax:

DEF <var>:PTR TO <type>

where type is either a simple type or a compound type. Example:

DEF x:PTR TO INT, myscreen:PTR TO screen

Note that 'screen' is the name of an object as defined in intuition/screens.m
For example, if you open your own screen with:

myscreen:=OpenS(...   etc.

you may use the pointer myscreen as in 'myscreen.rastport'. However,
if you do not wish to do anything with the variable until you call
CloseS(myscreen), you may simply declare it as

DEF myscreen

Variable declarations may have optional initialisations, but only
integer constants, i.e. no full expression:

DEF a=1, b=NIL:PTR TO textfont