Access to State and Country Picklist values through Apex or API?

Question

I recognize that State and Country Picklists are still a "Beta" feature, but does anyone know if, in Summer 13, its possible to get at the State and Country Picklist Values through either the Apex Schema Describe information or the API? I've heard that there is a distinct field called '[Mailing|Billing|Shipping][State|Country]Code' and corresponding to each Country or State field on standard objects, however this does not appear to be exposed through either Apex or the API --- even after State and Country Picklists are enabled in an org, both the API and Apex Schema Describe info for the State and Country fields still say that they're of DisplayType "STRING", and there's no Picklist Entries available for them.

Does anyone know of a way to get at these picklist entries from Apex Schema describe info, from the API, or some other way besides the native layouts or the apex:inputField tag? These values must be out there (somewhere) on the Salesforce Platform for orgs that the feature is enabled in...

Answer 1

Looking through the Spring 13 release notes (pg 121) I would expect the new fields to have "Code" appended. E.g. Account.ShippingCountry becomes Account.ShippingCountryCode.

This lines up with the online docs for Account:

ShippingCountryCode (beta)
Type picklist
Properties Create, Filter, Group, Nillable, Sort, Update
Description The ISO country code for the account’s shipping address.

Is your connection to the API or Apex class metadata using api version v28.0?

See also:

• Picklist Country ISO values Standard Countries for Address Picklists
• Base idea State and Country should be pick lists - for feedback on the implementation

Answer 2

SELECT BillingCountryCode FROM Account
SELECT BillingStateCode FROM Account

• SFDC Workbench - above executes successfully (V28.0 org)
• Apex testmethod - executes successfully if class is V27.0
• Apex Execute anonymous Apex within Eclipse IDE V24.0 - fails 'no such column error'