name: type-u32
kind: type
description: 4-byte unsigned integer; the common wide-cardinal default.
type: reference
applies_to: inspect, predict
Bytes
Fixed-width: 4 bytes per record, little-endian. Not bit-packed. Stride contributes 4 bytes to Schema.RecordByteSize; reader uses binary.LittleEndian.Uint32.
Range
0..4,294,967,295 (~4.29B). The default “I do not know the upper bound but it is not astronomical” unsigned integer. Surrogate keys, row counts, event sequence numbers, large-domain enums with no useful labels.
Null
Orthogonal. Nullable: true participates in the per-record null bitmap. 0 is the integer zero, never a sentinel. IsNumeric() and IsNumericForAnalytics() are both true; aggregators and regressions consume the values directly with null-skip semantics.
Dictionary
Absent. For wide-cardinality labeled enums prefer categorical_u32 — same 4-byte index width plus an inline dictionary block whose capacity is the full u32 range. set_u32 is the multi-select sibling.
See
- Skill:
cohort-schema-design(Field-type matrix, Selection heuristics). - Cross-link:
type-categorical-u32,type-set-u32.