ABL data type mappings

.NET data types are defined as part of the common type system within .NET. The common type system supports two general categories of types, value types and reference types. Many ABL data types are mapped to built-in value types provided by .NET. Reference types are classes, either those provided by .NET or user-defined classes. Some ABL data types are mapped to .NET-provided classes, and a few are mapped to ABL-provided classes.

An ABL parameter is mapped directly to its corresponding .NET data type or OpenEdge-provided class, as shown in the following table. These mappings also apply to user-defined function return types, although LONGCHAR and MEMPTR types cannot be returned across the Open Client interface.

Table 1. ABL to .NET data-type mapping for parameters
ABL	.NET
CHARACTER	System.String
COM-HANDLE	Progress.Open4GL.COMHandle
DATASET	Strongly typed DataSet See Passing DATASET and DATASET-HANDLE parameters.
DATASET-HANDLE	System.Data.DataSet See Passing DATASET and DATASET-HANDLE parameters.
DATE DATETIME DATETIME-TZ	System.DateTime
DECIMAL	System.Decimal
HANDLE	Progress.Open4GL.Handle
INT64	System.Int64
INTEGER	System.Int32
LOGICAL	System.Boolean
LONGCHAR	System.String
MEMPTR	Progress.Open4GL.Memptr
RAW	System.Byte[ ]
RECID	System.Int64
ROWID	Progress.Open4GL.Rowid
TABLE	Strongly typed DataTable.See Passing TABLE and TABLE-HANDLE parameters.
TABLE-HANDLE	System.Data.DataTable See Passing TABLE and TABLE-HANDLE parameters.
WIDGET-HANDLE	Progress.Open4GL.Handle

The COM-HANDLE, HANDLE, RECID, ROWID, and WIDGET-HANDLE data types are not meaningful outside the ABL environment. Their use is restricted to obtaining the value from an ABL procedure and passing it back to another ABL procedure.

The mapping for the individual fields of a temp-table or temp-tables within a ProDataSet differs from that of other parameters. For information on data type mapping for fields within these parameters, see Data type mapping for temp-table fields.