Data Framework

An OCAF document contains a data framework. This framework offers a single environment in which data is handled from different application components.

This allows you to exchange and modify data simply, consistently, with a maximum level of information, and with stable semantics.

The building block of this approach is the reference key, which allows the application to recover any entity in the current session or in a previous session.

In its transient form, the reference key is a label. And it is the label, which allows data to be attached to it by means of attributes.

The attribute is the container for application data, and is attached to a label in the hierarchy of the data framework. This same label may also contain many other attributes. Each attribute is identified by a GUID, and although a label may have several attributes attached to it, it must not have more than one attribute of the same GUID.

This hierarchical organization of data inside a document can be seen below.

Contents of a document

The two illustrations below show this functionality at work by the example of creation of a simple coffee pot model.

The coffee pot model

Structure of the coffee pot model

Note

For information on the relations between this component of OCAF and the others, refer to the OCAF User's Guide.