Difference between Temporary table and Container

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Mohamed Asarafali

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Temporary Tables vs. Containers

Microsoft Dynamics AX supports a special data type called a container. This data type can be used just as you would use a temporary table.

Data in containers are stored and retrieved sequentially, but a temporary table enables you to define indexes to speed up data retrieval. Containers provide slower data access if you are working with many records. However, if you are working with only a few records, use a container.

Another important difference between temporary tables and containers is how they are used in method calls. When you pass a temporary table into a method call, it is passed by reference. Containers are passed by value. When a variable is passed by reference, only a pointer to the object is passed into the method. When a variable is passed by value, a new copy of the variable is passed into the method. If the computer has a limited amount of memory, it might start swapping memory to disk, slowing down application execution. When you pass a variable into a method, a temporary table may provide better performance than a container.

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