A Rows is just a Rows, sorting/editing it all out?

So we can sort and edit and sort to our hearts content. And when done, we get the ROWS. How beautiful this is!

onCellTextChanged(text, col, row)
onCellValidated(text, col, row)

So what exactly IS the row, returned, (because sort etc, can change all this)
The current physical row?
The original row?

What, for example is the suggested or possible method: to get the fields changed and have them associated with the DATA record in question?

For example should you make a col of say "uniqueRecord_ID" for each record and perhaps then hide that from User view, THEN js lookup of the
"uniqueRecord_ID" for each changed field? THEN send that off for server processing? Or is there a cleaner way?
thanks
-g