Specifying attributes for objects

Attributes contain the data that is associated with objects. When you create an object, you must specify the attributes that are assigned to the object.

Descriptions and long descriptions
There is a limit to the amount of data that you can store in the description fields. Each database has its own specified limit. If you know that you need to store more data than is available in the description field, you can add a long description field to an attribute.
Adding attributes to objects
You can add attributes to an object when you want to provide more information about that object. You add attributes to objects using the Database Configuration application.
Changing attributes
You can change attributes when necessary. Depending on how the attribute is configured, you might not be able to modify all of the fields.
Creating restrictions on attributes
You can create restrictions on attributes to prevent external data from overwriting the value for the chosen attribute.
Excluding user-defined attributes when duplicating objects
There might be objects that you duplicate regularly but you do not want to include all user-defined attributes in the duplicated objects. For each object, you can specify the user-defined attributes that you do not want included when you duplicate objects. By excluding attributes, you can reduce the data maintenance work required to work with duplicated objects.

Parent topic: Defining objects for applications