Commerce Foundation Data Types

The Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation API uses a restricted set of native .NET data types and places some additional interpretation on them. Commerce Server 2009 does not expose proprietary data types to avoid creating a dependency on CrossTier type’s assemblies and DataSets.

Supported Data Types

Data Type

Description

Array

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

Boolean

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

Byte

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

Char

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

DateTime

The Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation API represents all DateTime values in the Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) time zone. Because the Commerce Server 2009 business logic may be unaware of the client’s time zone, the caller is responsible for all conversion between UTC and the local time zone.

The recommended provider design is to persist all DateTime values as UTC.

Commerce Server 2009 providers must convert the DateTime accordingly. The following table represents the format in which each Commerce Server module stores the DateTime information:

Feature Commerce Server Core Systems Format Commerce Server Core Systems DB Format
MarketingLocalUTC
CatalogLocalLocal
Transactions (Orders)LocalUTC
ProfilesLocalLocal

Decimal

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

Double

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

Int

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

Int64

The WSDL representation of Int64 is long.

UInt

The WSDL representation of UInt64 is unsignedLong.

UInt64

The WSDL representation of a Single is float.

Single

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

String

Same as Commerce Server Core Systems.

List<>

Collections of commerce entities that support standard data types. The WSDL representation of List<> is an array of the datatype of the list.

See Also

Other Resources

Developing with the Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation

Developing with the Commerce Foundation Catalog System

Developing with the Commerce Foundation Marketing System

Developing with the Commerce Foundation Orders System

Developing with the Commerce Foundation Profiles System