Universal Storage Mechanism

The Adapt Universal Storage mechanism provides a method for efficiently and securely storing ALL data at ALL times within Adapt. In conjunction with the facilities provided by Adapt logic structures, it enables high-speed, secure access to stored data.

The use of a single storage mechanism is a major simplification when compared to conventional development technologies. Applications are easier to create, understand and of course, adapt. The fact that all the Adapt 'system' information is also held in Universal Storage provides complete visibility to how the system is built/structured and gives the potential for applications to provide new levels of capability and integration.

Universal Storage allows direct access by application code to the stored information so that the overhead in using it is minimal. Such direct access (essentially the code is given a pointer to the data) is only safe because all the code is automatically generated from logics with the benefit of Total Design Knowledge and this means that the code will not misuse access to the data. Obviously, an application designer can define logic that doesn't make sense or which produces the wrong values, but whatever mistakes are made the information cannot be misused. In this context 'misuse' means interpreting data as the wrong type or the wrong size.

With conventional software written in a 3GL then if it is given a pointer to a data record it is always possible for a bug in the software to result in such misuse; e.g. the software may overwrite the end of the data provided and corrupt some totally unrelated memory item. In the case of Adapt such errors are simply not possible due to the fact that the automatically generated code may be trusted to use the data appropriately.

As all data items are held in Universal Storage there is no mechanism for moving data to an untraceable memory location such as an array element or onto a heap. This means that the data paths through an application can be analysed to show the derivation of any data item. Such an analysis is of great help in understanding the function of an application and deciding how best to make changes.

For a more detailed description of Universal Storage see Data Storage and Adapt Data Structures (dAtas)