To simplify the burden on the programmer, PL/1 provides an extensive system of defaults. In the minimal case, data does not need to be declared at all, but will be provides with a set of default attributes depending on the context in which used. The programmer has to declare enough information as necessary and the compiler will fill in the rest. For example, declaring a variable FIXED with no other attributes will cause the compiler to add the default attributes DECIMAL and a precision(number of digits).