Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Application
XML
Schema +
extension
DRB
validates
renders
PDF
PDF
PDF
selects
EVISAT
products
transforms
XML
Query
XSLT
Fig. 7.12 Example of DRB usage
7.3.5 Benefits of Formal Structure Representation
Information (FSRI)
There are a number of benefits of having a formal description for the structure
RepInfo, these are:
1. Machine readability of the FSRI, allowing analysis and processing.
2. Common format for FSRI that can apply to many data formats giving a common
(single) software interface to the data.
3. Higher probability of future re-use due to having a single software interface.
4. Easy validation of the data against the FSRI and also easy validation of the FSRI
against its formal grammar.
5. Ensures that all the relevant properties of the structure have been captured.
Machine readability of the FSRI is important as information about the structure can
be easily parsed making the implementation of data access routines that use them
easier to programme. This has the added benefit of a reduction in cost of producing
software implementations now and in the future. Being able to process the FSRI also
gives rise to the possibility for automating some aspects of data interoperability. For
example, PDT of DVs and sub-structures such as arrays and records can be auto-
matically discovered and compared between FSRIs which can allow the automatic
mapping and conversion between different data formats.
Software can be produced that takes the FSRI and the data and produces a com-
mon software interface to the DVs and sub-structures. In effect one has a single
software interface that reads the DVs from many data files with different structures
(formats). Having many FSRIs for many different data formats (XML Schema for
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