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Flexible Applications & Dynamic Queries

The end user can make friendlier, simpler and more transparent queries on the generic application data model when creating attributes dynamically with GXquery.

by Mayda Kurdian and Pablo Musso, from ARTech development team

Building applications that can be customized to different realities is essential for software development. In this way, it is possible to adapt quickly to the changes that take place in organizations and reuse an application in a wide variety of realities.

That's why you develop generic applications that are then adapted at the time of execution - or at least at the time of installation - using for example, the OAV development pattern (object, attribute, value).

Although the development of generic applications has many advantages, the use of this type of applications and the queries made on them can be confusing for the end user. This happens basically because of the loss of "semantics" and "expressivity" by the data bases of these applications since they model a broader, generic reality which can be customized to different clients.

To facilitate the use of data over the generic application attribute metadatas, the possibility of defining Attributes in runtime has been included in GXquery 2.0 Upgrade 1 and in the query mode of GXplorer 5.0. This enables reintegration of the semantics lost in the model, hiding the complexity of generic applications and giving the end user the possibility of making simple queries.

For example, if the "Product Color" attribute is not represented in the data base as an attribute with its own name (Product color) but it is included in a generic table of product characteristics (product OAV), in the GXquery it will be possible to define the "Product Color" attribute and to specify where it is stored. From then on, the end user will query in GXquery the Product Color attribute just like with any other attribute.

The development of generic applications increases the complexity of the application; however, this complexity must not be transferred to the end user who can query those data bases in a friendlier and more transparent way with GXquery.

More technical information:
http://www.gxtechnical.com/gxdlsp/pub/gxquery/docum/releasenotes/20/oav.htm

 

 

 

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