title: Why does the Magento cart.create function make the cart inactive?
body: <p>I’ve been fiddling 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”.</p>
  
  <p>I did some digging and discovered that the API sets “is_active” in app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/Model/Cart/Api.php.</p>
  
  <p>Here’s the relevant block of code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public function create($store = null)
  {
      $storeId = $this-&gt;_getStoreId($store);
  
      try {
          /*@var $quote Mage_Sales_Model_Quote*/
          $quote = Mage::getModel('sales/quote');
          $quote-&gt;setStoreId($storeId)
              -&gt;setIsActive(false)
              -&gt;setIsMultiShipping(false)
              -&gt;save();
      } catch (Mage_Core_Exception $e) {
          $this-&gt;_fault('create_quote_fault', $e-&gt;getMessage());
      }
      return (int) $quote-&gt;getId();
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>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?</p>