A FLEXIBLE VIRTUAL DATABASE SYSTEM INCLUDING A HIERARCHICAL APPLICATION PARAMETER REPOSITORY

摘要

A virtual database system is disclosed that provides a flexible number and structure of database tables while using a fixed structure database system as its core. A table set (20), a column set (22), and an association set (24) are defined in an underlying fixed database environment. The data and relationships between these tables are used to define a virtual table (26) with a structure that can be varied as needed by application developers (and users) while the structure of the underlying fixed database remains unchanged. In a particular application, a hierarchical application parameter repository is implemented wherein parameters used by specific applications can be defined at various levels, such as for the application as a whole, for the application as used by a particular group, or as used by a particular user.