Method of providing data dictionary-driven web-based database applications

Abstract

A method for creating a web-based database application that is data dictionary driven is disclosed. A web site, containing various computer programs, data for a database application and a data dictionary describing both the structure of an application database and the requirements for the database application, creates web pages for facilitating the execution of a database application over the internet. The method comprises the steps of creating, updating and maintaining an on-line data dictionary, and creating and initially populating a database for the application. The various programs at the web site create web pages for the application, update the data dictionary and facilitate modification of the data structure for the application. The data dictionary may be initialized: from electronic data uploaded to the web site; from the data-dictionary records describing an existing web-based application; or directly by the user via a web interface. The resulting application allows the user to enter information, view information, select the records to be viewed, and make changes to the application such as form captions, fields displayed, colors used, database structure, and other contents of the data dictionary.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates generally to data bases and more particularly, to a method of using a data dictionary to create a web-based database application. BACKGROUND [0002] A data dictionary is an electronic repository of information that describes many of the components of a database application. A data dictionary for web-based database applications may contain information describing one or more of the following: (1) the web application's database structure (tables, fields, indices, and relationships), (2) database characteristics (required fields, field masks, etc), and (3) the web application's components (menus, forms, reports, export formats, etc.). It may also contain information relating to (4) the text or images that are displayed on web forms and menus (for buttons, captions, labels, form titles, messages, etc.), (5) the fonts and colors used to display text on the web forms, (6) the location where the various items are to be displayed on ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014] The user may start the database application by using a web browser to request a web page in the user's project directory. The application allows the user to enter or change information, view information, select the records to be viewed, and exported, reported, or exported.

Problems solved by technology

In both of these cases, a significant amount of programming is usually required for each web page that contains data which is extracted from a database in real-time.

There are two problems with this approach: (1) once the “wizard” is run, the user often has to make extensive changes to the code produced and (2) the information provided to the “wizard” is usually not saved; the developer must re-enter the data when re-running the “wizard”.

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