Dictionary - Dictionary Handle

The dictionary handle is used for providing schema definitions from the dictionary. The dictionary creates internal images from the externally stored schema definitions. These internal images (e.g. TypeDefinition ) can be provided by means of dictionary functions.

Schema definitions include data model definitions, functional model and causal model. Functional model and causal model are not accessible as internal definitions like TypeDefinition , but can be read directly from the dictionary. Because the dictionary handle is a database handle ( Database ), one may, however, access schema information directly via property handle functions.

In order to read system resources (schema information), the dictionary can be accessed directly by calling appropriate Property functions. Besides schema definition, a dictionary may contain further resource definitions as presentation rules (GUI classes), which also might be retrieved directly by reading from the dictionary database. In this case, however, the dictionary database has to be opened as database with the ode.sys database as dictionary, since extended resource definitions are not part of the built-in schema definitions.