Patent ID: 7096229

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of dynamically generating a logical field specification for a logical field associated with a physical entity of data in a computer system, the physical entity of data having a particular physical data representation, the method comprising: providing a logical field specification template comprising a plurality of specification sub-fields, each specification sub-field designated by a sub-field descriptor; accessing the respective physical entities of data to determine data items associated with the sub-field descriptors of each specification sub-field; linking each specification sub-field to a corresponding determined data item; and generating, based on the corresponding determined data items linked to the specification sub-fields, logical field specifications, each logical field specification specifying a logical field name, at least one location attribute identifying a location of physical data, and a reference to an access method selected from at least two different access method types, wherein each of the different access method types defines a different manner of exposing the physical data to a user, wherein at least one of the generated logical field specifications contains a reference to a first access method type which exposes the respecitive physical data in its native physical form, and at least one of the generated logical field specifications contains a reference to a second access method type which requires the respective physical data to be input to an expression, the result of which expression is exposed to the user; wherein values for at least the logical field names and location attributes are provided by the corresponding determined data items.