There are three ways to define and create client datasets that do not represent server data:

• You can define and create a new client dataset using persistent fields or field and index definitions. This follows the same scheme as creating any table type dataset. See Creating and deleting tables for details.
• You can copy an existing dataset (at design or runtime).
• You can create a client dataset from an arbitrary XML document. See Converting XML documents into data packets for details.

Once the dataset is created, you can save it to a file. From then on, you do not need to recreate the table, only load it from the file you saved. When beginning a file-based database application, you may want to first create and save empty files for your datasets before writing the application itself. This way, you start with the metadata for your client dataset already defined, making it easier to set up the user interface.