Implicit data type mapping between ABL primitive and .NET types

The following table lists implicit data type mappings between ABL primitive types and corresponding .NET data types. This implicit mapping means that the corresponding data types can be assigned to each other:

Table 1. Implicit data type mapping between ABL primitive and .NET types
Implicit .NETobject type Implicit C#primitive type Implicit ABLprimitive type
System.Boolean bool LOGICAL
System.Byte byte INTEGER
System.SByte sbyte INTEGER
System.DateTime — DATETIME
System.Decimal decimal DECIMAL
System.Int16 short INTEGER
System.UInt16 ushort INTEGER
System.Int32 int INTEGER
System.UInt32 uint INT64
System.Int64 long INT64
System.UInt64 ulong DECIMAL
System.Double double DECIMAL
System.Single float DECIMAL
System.Char char CHARACTER
System.String string CHARACTER LONGCHAR

ABL also automatically maps one-dimensional .NET arrays to ABL arrays. So, assuming that the arrays are the same size, the corresponding .NET and ABL array types in the following table can be assigned to each other.

Table 2. Example implicit mappings between one-dimensional .NET arrays and ABL arrays
.NET array type Corresponding ABL array type
System.Drawing.Point[] System.Drawing.Point EXTENT
System.Windows.Forms.Button[] System.Windows.Forms.Button EXTENT
System.Int32[] INTEGER EXTENT
System.Byte[] INTEGER EXTENT

Notice that you can assign between the same ABL primitive array type and a .NET array of the same size and any implicitly mapped .NET type. So, the same ABL INTEGER array can be assigned to a .NET array of System.Int32 or System.Byte (as shown), or of any other supported mapping, such as System.Int16, and so on.

The following table lists the default match between the specified ABL primitive type and its corresponding .NET data type.

Table 3. Default match between specified ABL primitive types and corresponding .NET data types
ABLprimitive type Default match (.NET object type) Default match (C# primitive type)
CHARACTER System.String string
DATETIME System.DateTime —
DECIMAL ystem.Decimal decimal
INT64 System.Int64 long
INTEGER System.Int32 int
LOGICAL System.Boolean bool

This means that in the following situations, the ABL type matches the corresponding .NET type by default:

  • When assigning the ABL primitive type to a System.Object
  • When passing the ABL primitive type as a parameter to an overloaded .NET method
  • When overriding a .NET method or implementing a .NET interface

For all of the above situations, you can also explicitly indicate any available .NET data type mapping other than the default (see Explicit data type mapping from ABL primitive to .NET types.)

The following table shows examples of implicit data type mappings.

Table 4. Example implicit mappings between ABL and .NET types
Operation description Operation using Type of data element
Assign an INTEGER value to a System.Int16 data element (creating a new System.Int16 object in the process) 
System.Int16 = INTEGER.
Assign a System.Int16 value to an INTEGER data element 
INTEGER = System.Int16.
Pass an INTEGER value to the System.Int16 parameter of a .NET method (creating a new System.Int16 object in the process) 
Method( INPUT INTEGER).
Assign the elements of a DECIMAL array to a System.Double[] array data element (creating a new System.Double[] array object that contains all the element values of the DECIMAL array source) 
System.Double[] = DECIMAL EXTENT.
Assign the elements of a System.Double[] array object to a DECIMAL array of the same extent 
DECIMAL EXTENT = System.Double[].
Pass a DECIMAL array value to the System.Double[] parameter of a .NET method (creating a new System.Double[] array object containing all the element values of the DECIMAL array argument) 
Method( OUTPUT DECIMAL EXTENT ).