ThingWorx Base Types and Primitives (Java SDK Details)

ThingWorx Edge Java SDK > Application Details > ThingWorx Base Types and Primitives (Java SDK Details)

Base types and primitives both provide classifications for data values. While base types are just a label, a primitive is a base type PLUS a value. The ThingWorx Platform has its own set of primitives that represent a wide variety of data types. For example, the platform and Edge products all have a base type called LOCATION; the primitive, Location, is the LOCATION base type plus an actual location (with settings for latitude, longitude, and altitude).

INFOTABLE is a special base type that is used to aggregate data of various types into one value. For example, an infotable might be used to return results of a service request.

To access a string value from an infotable as a primitive, use the following code:

// This way of accessing a value will work for all primitive types.
StringPrimitive prim = (StringPrimitive) result.getFirstRow().
getPrimitive("name");

LOG.info("The name of the Thing is: {} "prim.getValue());

The following table lists and briefly describes the base types and their corresponding primitives in ThingWorx Platform and ThingWorx Edge products.

Base Type	ThingWorx Platform Primitive	Description
BOOLEAN	BooleanPrimitive	True or false values only
DATETIME	DatetimePrimitive	Date and time value
GROUPNAME	StringPrimitive	ThingWorx group name
HTML	StringPrimitive	HTML value
HYPERLINK	StringPrimitve	Hyperlink value
IMAGE	ImagePrimitive	Image value
IMAGELINK	StringPrimitive	Image link value
INFOTABLE	InfoTablePrimitive	ThingWorx infotable
INTEGER	IntegerPrimitive	32–bit integer value
JSON	JSONPrimitive	JSON structure
LOCATION	LocationPrimitive	ThingWorx location structure
MASHUPNAME	StringPrimitive	ThingWorx mashup name
MENUNAME	StringPrimitive	ThingWorx menu name
NOTHING		No type (used for services to define void result)
NUMBER	NumberPrimitive	Double precision value
STRING	StringPrimitive	String value
QUERY		ThingWorx query structure
TEXT	StringPrimitive	Text value
THINGNAME	StringPrimitive	The name of a ThingWorx Thing
USERNAME	StringPrimitive	ThingWorx user name
XML	XMLPrimitive	XML structure