Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
AppBuilder

Introduction to data-access objects

Almost all database operations are performed against only a subset of the records in a database, and often against only a subset of the fields within those records. The reasons for this typically include security and privacy issues, the limits of human cognition and, in modern multi-terabyte databases, the computational and real-time costs of repeatedly traversing enormous numbers of irrelevant records.

Every OpenEdge application you build, regardless of what it does with the records afterwards, will start by connecting to at least one database and fetching records that meet certain criteria.

AppBuilder offers several powerful ADM SmartObject modular building blocks for data access:

Static and dynamic SmartDataObjects.
SmartBusinessObject.
SmartFilter.

These are in addition to the standard Progress objects including standalone queries and objects that combine data access with visualization and update capability.

The rest of this chapter discusses how to use these building blocks in your applications.