Master Index Object Definition Objects

In a master index application, information is stored in objects. Each object in the data structure represents a different type of information. For example, if you are indexing businesses, you might have one object type to store general information about the business (such as the business name and type), one to store address information, and one to store contact information. When indexing personal information, you might have one object type to store general information about the person (such as their name, date of birth, and gender), one to store address information, and one to store telephone information. The object structure can have several objects, but only one primary object (called the parent object). This object is the parent to all other objects defined in the Object Definition. The object structure can have multiple child objects or no child objects at all.

Generally, a record in the master index application has information in one parent object and multiple child objects. A record can also have multiple instances of each child object. For example, in the person index example above, a record for a single person would have one name, one date of birth, and one gender, all three stored in the parent object. However, the same record might have several different addresses, each of which is stored in a separate Address object.