When you use the BDE to access your data, your application has access to the Data Dictionary. The Data Dictionary provides a customizable storage area, independent of your applications, where you can create extended field attribute sets that describe the content and appearance of data. 

For example, if you frequently develop financial applications, you may create a number of specialized field attribute sets describing different display formats for currency. When you create datasets for your application at design time, rather than using the Object Inspector to set the currency fields in each dataset by hand, you can associate those fields with an extended field attribute set in the data dictionary. Using the data dictionary ensures a consistent data appearance within and across the applications you create. 

In a client/server environment, the Data Dictionary can reside on a remote server for additional sharing of information. 

To learn how to create extended field attribute sets from the Fields editor at design time, and how to associate them with fields throughout the datasets in your application, see Creating attribute sets for field components. To learn more about creating a data dictionary and extended field attributes with the SQL and Database Explorers, see their respective online help files.

Data Dictionary interface