Why does the Magento cart.create function make the cart inactive?

I’ve been fiddl开发者_高级运维ing with the Magento shopping cart API (Magento v.1.5) and found that when a cart is created (and products added) that the “is_active” value in the “sales_flat_quote” table is set to “0”. In contrast, if you use the “Add to cart” button in the store interface, the “is_active” value is set to “1”.

I did some digging and discovered that the API sets “is_active” in app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/Model/Cart/Api.php.

Here’s the relevant block of code:

public function create($store = null)
{
    $storeId = $this->_getStoreId($store);

    try {
        /*@var $quote Mage_Sales_Model_Quote*/
        $quote = Mage::getModel('sales/quote');
        $quote->setStoreId($storeId)
            ->setIsActive(false)
            ->setIsMultiShipping(false)
            ->save();
    } catch (Mage_Core_Exception $e) {
        $this->_fault('create_quote_fault', $e->getMessage());
    }
    return (int) $quote->getId();
}

So I'm not sure what the intent is to make it false. Is there a reason for the behavior difference between the store interface and the API? Or is there something additional that must be done through the API to make the cart active?

---

My best guess, and it is a guess as I cannot read the original developers minds, would be they were trying to prevent API generated quotes from showing up in abandoned cart reports.

The is_active flag is used to indicate an active quote for a customer and a customer should only ever have a single active quote. The flag is also used to know when a quote can be auto-removed from the system, the theory being that if the quote is not active it has been converted to an order and is no longer needed. If the Mage_Checkout Cart API is setting the flag to false then the quote is subject to auto-cleanup, possibly before you have converted it to an order. By setting the flag to false, it is also preventing you from using the API to create a live quote that a customer can use on the frontend.

So, I would say, if you are using the API to create a quote for a customer that you would need to add a publish() method. If you are using the API to modify the customer's existing quote, you won't run into the problem as it only shows up when creating a new quote.

In any case, I would personally think the current behavior is a bug due to the cleanup routines using that flag to indicate removable quotes.