mjk@sai.vtt.fi (Matti Koskivirta) (08/18/89)
Hi folks ! This article is quite long even if it contains only a single question. So, read the following 3 lines and skip the rest if you are not interested. Is there any _standard_ (proposal or "de facto") for "precise in-house data-format describing" ? The reason for my question is that I (as many others too) have : Machine X running A-language programs and having files/messages in M-format and Machine Y running B-language programs and having files/messages in N-format etc. and Persons/Manuals knowing the machines, languages and formats very well **** BUT **** I don't have : "General Purpose Contents Language" (GPCL) for describing the different machine- and language-dependent data structures and formats of the different systems in such way that I could: Do a "General Purpose Converting Program" (GPCP) in language C that (compiles in every machine X, Y etc. and) takes the GPL-descriptions of the various formats (M, N etc.) to create and interpret "General Purpose O-format (EDIFACT) files" to exchange data between the different systems. I hope the following picture is worth of 1000 more words :-): |-----------| | GPCL | Description for every | format | (machine,language,format) | desc. | -tuple that is needed |-----------| Logical | contents | description V |-------------| |-----------| |-------------| | Contents | | GPCP | | O-format | | description |----------->| to do |<--------->| files/msgs | | (EDI/ODA | | "the job" | | (EDIFACT/ | | ASN.1 etc) | | | | T.400 | |-------------| |-----------| |-------------| A | to here and vice versa V |-----------| | In-house | | file | From here |-----------| I know standards (EDIFACT ISO 9735, ODA ISO 8613 etc.) to describe the logical contents and formats of the files/messages, but I don't know any standard with which I could describe the physical contents (bit by bit) of the data in the various machine/language/file-format combinations. Is there any standard way for the bit-by-bit description (GPCL) ? Does anybody (IEEE, ISO ) use it for their purposes ? Is it simple (== How do you define IEEE floating point number using it) ? I hope that you don't say that "The only GPCL I know is English.", because I am not sure I can do the general interpreter for that language :-). (Ok, there was more than one single question in this article, but anyhow:) Please, send your answers/comments to me by electronic mail (or is this worth of general discussion in this/other newsgroup ?). Thanks in advance. Matti mjk@vtsai2.sai.vtt.fi =====================