Informatica Developer uses the following data types in mappings that run in a non-native environment:
Native data types
Native data types are specific to the sources and targets used as a physical data object. Native data types appear in the physical data object column properties.
Transformation data types
Transformation data types are set of data types that appear in the transformations. They are internal data types based on ANSI SQL-92 generic data types, which the Data Integration Service uses to move data across platforms. Transformation data types appear in all transformations in a mapping.
Transformation data types include the following data types:
Primitive data type. Represents a single data value in a single column position.
Complex data type. Represents multiple data values in a single column position. Use complex data types in mappings that run on the Spark engine to process hierarchical data in complex files.
When the Data Integration Service reads source data, it converts the native data types to the comparable transformation data types before transforming the data. When the Data Integration Service writes to a target, it converts the transformation data types to the comparable native data types.