Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data

1. A method in a computer system for providing a view of data, the method comprising:

providing physical data having standard and custom data, the standard data having entries with data for standard fields, the custom data having data for custom fields, the custom fields being represented by pivot data;

providing a map between standard and custom fields and logical fields of logical data;

providing a result set containing physical data from a standard field and a custom field;

organizing the physical data of the result set into logical data using the provided map; and

storing the organized logical data as the view.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the physical data, the custom data, the pivot data, and the logical data are represented as tables, the tables having rows and columns.

3. The method of claim 2 where each row of the pivot table identifies a custom column, a row of the physical table, and data for the custom column of the identified row of the physical table.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the map maps columns of the logical table to the corresponding standard column or custom column.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the map of a logical column includes an identifier of the custom column used by the pivot data.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein when the logical table is updated, updating the standard table and the custom table.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein the physical table comprises multiple standard tables with standard columns and when a logical column of the logical table is updated, updating only the standard table including the corresponding standard column.

8. The method of claim 2 wherein when the updating of the logical table includes adding data for a custom column of a logical row, adding a row to the pivot table for the custom column of the physical row corresponding to the logical row.

9. The method of claim 2 wherein when the updating of the logical table includes updating data for a custom column of a logical row, updating a row of the pivot table for the custom column of the physical row corresponding to the logical row.

10. A computer-readable storage medium containing a data structure for mapping between a logical table and a physical table, the physical table including a standard table and a custom table, the data structure comprising:

for each logical column of the logical table,

when the logical column corresponds to a standard column of the standard table, mapping the logical column to the corresponding standard column; and

when the logical column corresponds to a custom column of the custom table, mapping the logical column to the corresponding custom column, the custom table being represented by a pivot table;

instructions for generating a logical view of physical data using the mapping; and

instructions for storing the generated view.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the pivot table includes for each custom column, a row for each row of the physical table including data for the each custom column.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein each mapping of a logical column includes a name for the logical column, an indication of whether the corresponding standard column is a key of the standard table of the corresponding standard column, a name for the corresponding physical column, and a indication of either the standard table or the custom table.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 wherein the mapping of the logical column to the corresponding custom column includes a name of the corresponding pivot table, an identifier of a pivot column containing a name of the custom column, an identifier of a pivot column containing data of the custom column, and an identifier of a pivot column containing a key for a physical row.

14. A computer-readable storage medium containing instructions for controlling a computer system to update data, by a method comprising:

providing a map between standard and custom columns of a physical table and logical columns of a logical table, the custom columns being represented using a pivot table;

providing an indication of an update to the logical table;

using the map to determine the standard column or custom column to which an updated logical column corresponds; and

effecting the update of the determined column of the physical table.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 wherein when the determined column is a custom column updating a row of the pivot table.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 wherein each row of the pivot table identifies a custom column, a row of the physical table, and data for the identified custom column of the identified row of the physical data.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 wherein the logical table is generated by providing a result set containing physical data retrieved from standard and custom columns of the physical table and the map is used to map the retrieved physical data to the corresponding logical data of the logical table.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 wherein the logical table is represented as a dataset object.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 including adding tracker tables to the dataset object to log updates to the logical table.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 wherein the physical table includes multiple standard tables and the updating includes updating only those standard tables with standard columns corresponding to logical columns that were updated.

21. A computer-readable storage medium containing instructions for controlling a computer system to update data, by a method comprising:

providing a map between physical columns of a physical table and logical columns of a logical table, the physical table being represented a multiple database tables within a database;

providing a result set containing physical data derived from the multiple database tables;

organizing the physical data of the result set into a logical table based on the provided map;

providing an indication of an update to the logical table, the update updating logical columns corresponding to physical columns represented in different database tables;

using the provided map to determine to which columns of which database tables the updated logical columns correspond; and

effecting the update of the determined columns of the database tables.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21 wherein the database tables correspond to standard tables and a custom table, the custom table being represented by a pivot table.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22 wherein when a determined column is a custom column of the custom table, updating a row of the pivot table.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22 wherein each row of the pivot table identifies a custom column, a row of the physical table, and data for the identified custom column of the identified row of the physical data.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21 wherein the logical table is represented as a dataset object.

26. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 25 including adding tracker tables to the dataset object to log updates to the logical table.

27. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21 wherein the physical table includes multiple standard tables and the updating includes updating only those standard tables with standard columns corresponding to logical columns that were updated.