Method and apparatus for exchanging data with a database

A data exchange system for communicating with a database having a plurality of data tables includes a plurality of internal classes adapted to represent data from the data tables in a business entity format, a plurality of query structures corresponding to the plurality of data tables and a plurality of document classes referencing one or more of the plurality of query structures. The data exchange system allows an application to communicate with the database without having to know the structure of the database. Moreover the data exchange system allows the database to communicate with a document without having to know any business logic governing the creation, retrieval, update, deletion, etc., of the document.