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Acquisitions Editor: Ben Ryan
Project Editor: Maureen Williams Zimmerman
Technical Editor: David W. Robinson
Copy Editor: Crystal Thomas
Indexer: Brenda Miller
Body Part No. X12-41754
Contents at a Glance
Part I A Tour of the Development Environment
1 Architectural Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
2 The MorphX Development Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3 The MorphX Designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4 The MorphX Development Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5 The X++ Programming Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Part II Developing with Microsoft Dynamics AX
6 Customizing Microsoft Dynamics AX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7 Extending Microsoft Dynamics AX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
8 The Business Connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
9 XML Document Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Part III Under the Hood
10 The Enterprise Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
11 Configuration and Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
12 The Database Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
13 Advanced MorphX Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
14 Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
15 System Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
16 Unit Testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
17 Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
18 Upgrade and Data Migration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
iii
iv Contents at a Glance
Part IV Appendixes
A Application Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
B Microsoft SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, and
Oracle Database 10g Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
C Source Code Changes Required for Upgrade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
1
Table of Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Who Is This Book For? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxi
The History of Microsoft Dynamics AX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Organization of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Reading Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Product Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Product Web Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Naming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiv
Special Legend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiv
System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiv
Pre-Release Software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
Technologoy Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
Code Samples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
Support for This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
Questions and Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvi
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Part I
A Tour of the Development Environment
Architectural Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Operations Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Application Development and Run-Time Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Rich Client Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Web Client Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Integration Client Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Enterprise Portal and Web Parts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Application Modeling and Program Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The Application Model Layering System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
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