some keys in the hikashop user

when I load the user using hikashop_loadUser(true) I get some keys such as
[user_partner_id] => 0
[user_partner_price] => 0.00000
which are always zero no matter if I came from an affiliate link so what do those do exactly.

Also is there a way to find out if the user came in through an affiliate in the at the shopping cart other than looking for the stored cookie?

These options are used for affiliate users. For non affiliate users they are always set to 0. They have nothing to do with how the users came on the website.

Looking for the stored cookie is the way to go actually.

ok about the stored cookie I get a letter and a number. so how does that relate to the ID of the affiliate. For the affiliate of ID 5 I get F5 written in the cookie, what do these represent and how can I get the real user ID that I can lookup in the database

Remove all the letters and keep only the numbers and you will get the id of the user.