difference between categorical and continuous
Categorical. A categorical variable (sometimes called a nominal variable) is one that has two or more categories, but there is no intrinsic ordering to the categories. For example, gender is a categorical variable having two categories (male and female) and there is no intrinsic ordering to the categories.
A continuous variable is one that is defined over an interval of values, meaning that it can suppose any values in between the minimum and maximum value. It can be understood as the function for the interval and for each function, the range for the variable may vary.