ADF XML Files

Oracle ADF documentation describes a lot of XML files used internally in each ADF application. As documentation says the files are used by applications to:

• Specify the parameters, methods, and return values available to your application's Oracle ADF data control usages
• Create objects in the Oracle ADF binding context and define the runtime behavior of those objects
• Define configuration information about the UI components in JSF and ADF Faces 
• Define application configuration information for the Java EE application server

In the typical ADF application we are dealing with two main elements: model layer and view-controller layer.

Model layer

ADF Model implements concepts that enable decoupling the user interface technology from the business service implementation: data controls and declarative bindings.

Data control layer
In the data controllayer we have the data control implementation files: entity and view object definitions, view links definitions, application module definition files. Generally speaking, it is a set of files visible in a typical ADF Model porject. These files, in conjunction with the bc4j.xcfg file, provide the necessary information for the data control.

Data binding layer
In the each typical data aware view-controller project we can find a set of files responsible for "data binding" functionality:

• DataBindings.cpx - one or more files. DataBinding.cpx defines the binding context for the entire application and provide the metadata from which the Oracle ADF binding objects are created at runtime. The file contains the page map, page definitions references and data control references, and thus maps individual pages to page definition files and declares which data controls are being used by the application.
• adfm.xml: This file lists the DataBindings.cpx files that are available in the current project.
• <pagename>PageDef.xml: Page definition XML files. They associates web page UI components with data and data controls.