Special data types

Special data types

The special data types are used to describe objects that actually belong to the elementary data types, since they are used as such in everyday life. For example, a current date, such as "Monday, 27.1.1997", or a formula, such as "total price = quantity * 4.59 DM - 10%", represents an everyday quantity, which is not available as a data type in EDP by default. In ClassiX® , these object types are summarised as special data types and are subdivided into areas:

Area	Examples
Date	"27.1.1997", "From 22.1.1997 to 27.1.1997", "1st calendar week 1997", "Sundays and public holidays
Time	"10.00", "From 10.00 to 11.00", "From 10 to 11 every 20 minutes
Date	"On 25 March 1997 at 10 a.m.", "On 1.1.1997 at 1 a.m. in time zone 1h"
Number	"2", "2.5", "20%", "4.59 DM", "1/2"
Formulas	"Price = quantity * DM 4.59 - 10%".
conditional object tables	If the customer is "Meier" and the article is "tin can type 5", then 5% discount, otherwise 3% discount

Each of these data types accesses country-specific information. For example, a date in the European area is usually displayed in the format "DD.MM.YYYY", while in the USA the preferred spelling is "MM/DD/YYYY". All this country-specific information is managed in so-called locales and can be adapted as required.