Type and format

The type and format properties on parameters and schemas can be used to determine the data type of the property. The type property indicates the type of the property when its sent in JSON requests and responses (JSON supports a small set of data types, see json.org for details). The format property provides additional information about the underlying type. Properties will always have a type property, but some may also have a format property.

For example, a 64-bit integer cannot be represented in JSON (since JavaScript and JSON support integers up to 2^53). Therefore, a 64-bit integer must be represented as a string in JSON requests/responses. So the type property will be set to "string", but the format property will be set to "int64" to indicate that it is a 64-bit integer.

The JSON Schema spec already defines a set of common values for the format property. The Google APIs Discovery Service supports some of these values, and defines others as well. The full list of type and format values supported by Google APIs Discovery Service is summarized below.

Type value Format value Meaning
any The property may have any type. Defined by the JSON Schema spec.
array A JavaScript array of values. The items property indicates the schema for the array values. Defined by the JSON Schema spec.
boolean A boolean value, either "true" or "false". Defined by the JSON Schema spec.
integer int32 A 32-bit signed integer. It has a minimum value of -2,147,483,648 and a maximum value of 2,147,483,647 (inclusive).
integer uint32 A 32-bit unsigned integer. It has a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of 4,294,967,295 (inclusive).
number double A double-precision 64-bit IEEE 754 floating point.
number float A single-precision 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point.
object A JavaScript object. Defined by the JSON Schema spec.
string An arbitrary string. Defined by the JSON Schema spec.
string byte A padded, base64-encoded string of bytes, encoded with a URL and filename safe alphabet (sometimes referred to as "web-safe" or "base64url"). Defined by RFC4648.
string date An RFC3339 date in the format YYYY-MM-DD. Defined in the JSON Schema spec.
string date-time An RFC3339 timestamp in UTC time. This in the format of yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.SSSZ. The milliseconds portion (".SSS") is optional. Defined in the JSON Schema spec.
string google-datetime An RFC3339 timestamp in UTC time. This in the format of yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.SSSZ. The milliseconds portion (".SSS") is optional.
string google-duration A string ends in the suffix "s" (indicating seconds) and is preceded by the number of seconds, with nanoseconds expressed as fractional seconds. The period is always used as the decimal point, not a comma.
string google-fieldmask A string where field names are separated by a comma. Field names are represented in lower-camel naming conventions.
string int64 A 64-bit signed integer. It has a minimum value of -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 and a maximum value of 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (inclusive).
string uint64 A 64-bit unsigned integer. It has a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of (2^64)-1 (inclusive).