Appendix – Terminology Definitions

Current memory:The current memory contains the data on the instance that is being edited at the moment. To do this, the owning application as well as the participating applications in their function group create globally valid field structures (only one record per instance possible) or tables (several records possible) for each table. Old and new datasets are kept separately in the current memory.

The old set is made up of data that exists on the initial screen in maintenance. This data is generally flagged at event ISDAT (table-owning application) or ISDST (table-participating application). The new set reflects the data currently entered and is also flagged for the first time at events ISDAT and/or ISDST. The status is then updated after each entry.

Global memory: This memory contains data for all instances that have already been edited but have not yet been saved to the database. The owning application creates only one memory for each table. The data from the participating application is also flagged in the table. Regardless of whether one or more records can exist for each instance in the table, the owning application creates a globally valid table within its function group. As in the current memory, a distinction is made in the global memory between the old and new statuses, which are also flagged separately. The old status represents the current database status and is only created in the first data maintenance for an instance for this reason. This takes place by transferring the data (event DTAKE) from the old status of the current memory. If this instance is maintained again in transfer mode without saving in the meantime, you cannot change the old status at this point. The new status is updated every time the data is transferred. The new status is copied from the new status of the current memory.

Applications which own the tables: Application that created the table and in whose development class the table is located. This application is responsible for reading the data on the initial screen (event ISDAT ) as well as for writing the data to the database (event DSAVE ).

Applications using the tables: Application that adds data fields to the table of another application using the APPEND structure. This application takes data from the application that owns the tables (event ISDST ) and transfers the new status of its own data fields to this application prior to saving the data (event DSAVB ).

Events: Events are defined in different places in the BDT. Each application can define the name of its own function modules in the BDT’s control tables at these events. Once the process reaches an event, the BDT automatically calls all the function modules in the applications whose names are entered for this event. Applications can use this technique to include their own program logic.