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Simple Schema Types

The eBay REST APIs make use of several simple schema types.

Data Type Description
boolean Specifies binary-valued logic (true/false). Possible input values are true or 1, and false or 0. Possible output values are true and false only (not 1 or 0).
integer A 32-bit integer value between -2147483648 and 2147483647.

In the API, most fields of type integer can contain digits 0-9, and hyphen to indicate negative numbers. Some input fields restrict the input to particular values or a range of values. These cases are noted in the associated topic for the specific input field.

We typically use the integer data type for counts (e.g., how many items are returned), quantities, certain kinds of IDs (other IDs are strings), and similar concepts.
number This data type specifies a signed (i.e., positive or negative) decimal value containing the digits 0-9, a hyphen to designate negative numbers as needed, and a period (".") for the decimal separator (e.g., "5" or "33.99" or "3.14159" or "-0.23"). Number values should never include a thousands separator.

The number type may be used for double or float values, such as values to indicate amounts of money, such as prices, fees, costs, and payments.
string A string of characters. All characters in the Unicode character set are supported.

Character entity references are used for escaping markup-significant characters. For example, use &amp; for the & (ampersand) character, &lt; for the < (less-than sign) character, and &gt; for the > (greater-than sign) character. It is a good idea to escape such characters in requests instead of using a CDATA construct. Responses from eBay do not include CDATA constructs.