DFC stands for Documentum Foundation Classes and is an Object-Oriented (OO) Framework consisting of APIs for accessing and extending Content Server functionality. Simply speaking, it is a set of Java interfaces and classes written as a wrapper over DMCL. Apart from the regular DMCL capabilities, DFC also provides features such as data validation, virtual document management, etc.
Additionally, DFC also provides a Documentum Java-COM Bridge (DJCB) so that the Java interfaces can be used from within a Microsoft COM environment as well as by programs in Visual Basic, for example. DFC also includes a Business Objects Framework (BOF) that enables developers to model application business rules in the form of reusable modular components/elements.
Figure 3.1 shows how the request-response paradigm works between clients and Content Server via the DMCL and DFC layer.
We will learn more about DFC through numerous examples in Chapter 23.