The API provides ABL developers with the ability to write code to access and update the core schema without knowing the details of the core implementation. These implementation details are encapsulated by a set of ABL user-defined classes. In addition, the API provides access to most of these classes using a set of public interfaces that will continue to work in future OpenEdge versions without affecting previous application code that uses them.

These public interfaces are provided in the following packages:

• OpenEdge.DataAdmin — Interfaces for accessing all database entity (and related) objects (such as objects for areas, tables, tenants, and partitions) and all collections of these entity objects, and for accessing the API service class that handles database access for these entity objects and collections
• OpenEdge.DataAdmin.Lang.Collections — An interface that supports a general iterator for navigating the entity objects in all entity collections
• OpenEdge.DataAdmin.Util — Interfaces for accessing supported utility classes

These supported packages also contain class implementations of all interfaces. These implementing classes are supported directly only for internal use because their constructors and members might change with each release. To minimize application code changes from release to release, always reference any API class using a public interface type that the class implements.

In addition, the API provides a set of data error classes in the OpenEdge.DataAdmin.Error package, and an error handler class for displaying the error messages thrown from the API. The API service class also supports properties and methods for managing all data errors raised by the service.

For a complete view of the API packages, you can access the dataadmin resource in the Class Browser view of Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge.