Commerce Foundation Category
A category is a container for products and other categories. A category is not a sellable unit with inventory, but it may have a list price that its child products can inherit. Every catalog has only one root category that is the logical beginning of the catalog tree hierarchy and that is accessible by using the catalog's RootCategory relationship. You cannot create or modify the root category.
Model
This commerce entity can be modified, as required. This model, taken from the out-of-the-box site, is provided as an example.
<CommerceEntity name="Category">
<DisplayName value="Category" />
<Description value="Product Catalog Category" />
<EntityMappings>
<EntityMapping
csType="Microsoft.CommerceServer.Catalog.Category"
csAssembly="Microsoft.CommerceServer.Catalog, Version=6.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35">
<PropertyMappings>
<!--The following mappings are required here to ensure that all
the product common properties are represented in the Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation
metadata. These are not returned by the Commerce Server
metadata automatically as the common properties.
-->
<PropertyMapping property="BaseCatalogName" csProperty="BaseCatalogName" />
<PropertyMapping property="CatalogId" csProperty="CatalogName" />
<PropertyMapping property="DefinitionName" csProperty="DefinitionName" />
<PropertyMapping property="DisplayName" csProperty="DisplayName" />
<PropertyMapping property="Id" csProperty="CategoryName" />
<PropertyMapping property="IsVirtualCatalog" csProperty="IsVirtualCatalog" />
<PropertyMapping property="ListPrice" csProperty="cy_list_price" />
<PropertyMapping property="UseCategoryPricing" csProperty="UseCategoryPricing" />
<PropertyMapping property="IsSearchable" csProperty="IsSearchable"/>
<PropertyMapping property="DateModified" csProperty="LastModified"/>
<PropertyMapping property="OriginalListPrice" csProperty="OriginalPrice" />
<PropertyMapping property="InternalId" csProperty="Oid" />
<PropertyMapping property="ParentInternalId" csProperty="ParentOid" />
</PropertyMappings>
</EntityMapping>
</EntityMappings>
<Properties>
<!--The following property definitions are required here to ensure that all
the product common properties are represented in the Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation
metadata. These are not returned by the Commerce Server
metadata automatically as the common properties.
-->
<Property name="BaseCatalogName" dataType="String" >
<DisplayName value="Base Catalog Name"/>
</Property>
<Property name="CatalogId" dataType="String" >
<DisplayName value="Catalog Id"/>
</Property>
<Property name="DefinitionName"dataType="String" >
<DisplayName value="Definition Name"/>
</Property>
<Property name="DisplayName" dataType="String" >
<DisplayName value="Display Name"/>
</Property>
<Property name="Id"dataType="String" >
<DisplayName value="Id"/>
</Property>
<Property name="IsVirtualCatalog" dataType="Boolean" isStronglyTyped="true" >
<DisplayName value="Is Virtual Catalog"/>
</Property>
<Property name="ListPrice" dataType="Decimal" >
<DisplayName value="List Price"/>
</Property>
<Property name="UseCategoryPricing" dataType="Boolean" >
<DisplayName value="Use Category Pricing"/>
</Property>
<Property name="IsSearchable" dataType="Boolean">
<DisplayName value="Is Searchable"/>
</Property>
<Property name="DateModified" dataType="DateTime">
<DisplayName value="Date Modified"/>
</Property>
<Property name="OriginalListPrice" dataType="Decimal" >
<DisplayName value="Original List Price"/>
</Property>
<Property name="InternalId" dataType="Integer" >
<DisplayName value="Internal Id"/>
</Property>
<Property name="ParentInternalId" dataType="Integer">
<DisplayName value="Parent Internal Id"/>
</Property>
</Properties>
<Relationships>
<!-- Catalog entity relationships -->
<Relationship name="BaseCatalog" type="Relationship" modelName="Catalog" isMultipleItems="false" />
<Relationship name="PrimaryParentCategory" type="Relationship" modelName="Category" isMultipleItems="false" />
<!-- Hierarchical commerce entity relationships -->
<Relationship name="AncestorCategories" type="Relationship" modelName="Category" isMultipleItems="true" />
<Relationship name="CanonicalCategories" type="Relationship" modelName="Category" isMultipleItems="true" />
<Relationship name="Discounts" type="Relationship" modelName="DiscountDefinition" isMultipleItems="true" />
<Relationship name="ParentCategories" type="Relationship" modelName="Category" isMultipleItems="true" />
<Relationship name="RelatedCategories" type="Relationship" modelName="Category" isMultipleItems="true" />
<Relationship name="RelatedProducts" type="Relationship" modelName="Product" isMultipleItems="true" />
<Relationship name="CrossSells" type="CatalogRelationship" modelName="HierarchicalCatalogEntity" isMultipleItems="true" >
<DisplayName value="Cross-Sell Products" />
<Description value="Cross-Sell Products" />
</Relationship>
<!-- Category specific relationships -->
<Relationship name="ChildCategories" type="Relationship" modelName="Category" isMultipleItems="true" />
<Relationship name="ChildProducts" type="Relationship" modelName="Product" isMultipleItems="true" />
</Relationships>
</CommerceEntity>
Properties
Property |
Type |
Description |
|---|---|---|
BaseCatalogName |
String |
The name of the base catalog for this category. |
CatalogId |
String |
ID (CatalogName) of the containing catalog. |
DateModified |
DateTime? |
Date the commerce entity was modified. The value derives from LastModifed. |
DefinitionName |
String |
Name of this object's definition. |
DisplayName |
String |
Display name for this object. |
Id |
String |
Unique identifier of the commerce entity. This value derives from the category name. |
InternalId |
int? |
Maps to the Commerce Server object's object ID property, it is a unique DB key. |
IsSearchable |
bool? |
Specifies if the IsSearchable property set to True. |
IsVirtualCatalog |
bool? |
Type of Catalog. If True: catalog is virtual |
ListPrice |
decimal? |
List price for the category. |
OriginalListPrice |
decimal? |
List price of the object when it was created. |
ParentInternalId |
int? |
Maps to the Commerce Server object's object ID Property, it is a unique DB key. |
UseCategoryPricing |
bool? |
Denotes whether the category pricing should be used. |
Relationships
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
AncestorCategories |
Relationship list of categories walking up the ancestral chain. |
BaseCatalog |
Relationship to the base catalog for this category. |
CanonicalCategories |
Relationship list of categories walking up the primary parent ancestral chain. |
ChildCategories |
Relationship list of all categories under this category. |
ChildProducts |
Relationship list of all products under this category. |
CrossSells |
Relationship list of all cross sells under this category. |
DiscountDefinitions |
Relationship list of all DiscountDefinition objects for this category from the Marketing System. |
ParentCategories |
Relationship list of all of this category’s parents. |
PrimaryParentCategory |
Relationship to the primary parent category for this object. |
RelatedCategories |
Relationship list of all of this category’s related categories. |
RelatedProducts |
Relationship list of all of this category’s related products. |
Supported Operations
The following operations are supported for the Category entity:
Commerce Foundation CatalogEntity CommerceQuery
Commerce Foundation Catalog CommerceQuery
Commerce Foundation Category CommerceQuery
Commerce Foundation Product CommerceQuery
See Also
Other Resources
Developing with Commerce Server 2009