Developers describe modern database systems variously as relational, semantic, and object oriented. UNIBASE incorporates elements of all these database models. It is a Rapid Application Development (RAD) system, designed to make the building of large multi-user applications easy and feasible for small teams of programmers.
UNIBASE is the place for developing large scale software as service applications. Including a high performance database; a new language for describing complex commercial applications; a working high performance replacement for XFORMS that integrates directly to the application and database; an AJAX library for high performance web sites that deliver an experience similar to the best applications used in house.
1.1 Writing Applications with UNIBASE
UNIBASE simplifies application writing, but remember it cannot replace good design, so if you organization has a formal development procedure ,it should be used.
The design process typically culminates in some sort of Dataflow, a list of tables and their relationships, a list of necessary forms and reports, and a set of processes to be implemented.
Writing a UNIBASE application involves several steps.
1) Create table definitions and their physical files.
2) Design a Data Entry screen or form.
3) Use this screen to populate the tables with data
4) Generate simple reports to verify the data.
5) Implement the processes that convert and update the data.
This manual provides the details and examples for each of these functions.
Developers describe modern database systems variously as relational, semantic, and object oriented. UNIBASE incorporates elements of all these database models. UNIBASE offers Entity-Relationship model users the ability to model an E-R diagram directly, a feature of particular interest to them.
1.2 Unibase application structure
There are no firm rules for how a Unibase applications should be structured; however, years of practice and experiment suggest the following layout.
These rules facilitate the use of many of the automated application integrity checking utilities.
The root directory of an application should be /usr/local/app/<application>. Eg /usr/local/app/uniquote.
There can be may options under this directory. The most common are:
- bin – commands, scripts, compiled programs
- dct – data dictionary components
- prm – forms (prompts)
- rep (reports)
