Data access layer: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:30, 12 October 2022

Revision as of 10:15, 12 March 2024

Line 1:

A '''data access layer''' ('''DAL''') in computer softwareabirami is a [[layer (object-oriented design)|layer]] of a [[computer program]] which provides simplified access to [[data]] stored in [[persistent storage]] of some kind, such as an [[entity relationship|entity-relational]] [[database]]. This [[acronym]] is prevalently used in [[Microsoft]] environments.

For example, the DAL might return a reference to an [[object (computer science)|object]] (in terms of [[object-oriented programming]]) complete with its attributes instead of a [[row (database)|row]] of [[Field (computer science)|fields]] from a database [[table (database)|table]]. This allows the [[Client (computing)|client]] (or user) modules to be created with a higher level of [[abstraction]]. This kind of model could be implemented by creating a class of data access methods that directly reference a corresponding set of database stored procedures. Another implementation could potentially retrieve or write records to or from a file system. The DAL hides this complexity of the underlying data store from the external world.