Spatial Archive and Interchange Format: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:30, 6 December 2010

Revision as of 00:32, 6 December 2010

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{{wikify|date=November 2010}}

The Spatial Archive and Interchange Format (SAIF, pronounced ''safe'') was defined in the early 1990s as a self-describing, extensible format designed to support interoperability and storage of geospatial data. SAIF has two major components that together define SAIFtalk. The first is the Class Syntax Notation (CSN), a data definition language used to define a dataset's schema. Th second is the Object Syntax Notation (OSN) , a complementary language used to represent the object data adhering to the schema.

'''SAIF Dataset'''

SAIF has two major components that together define SAIFtalk. The first is the Class Syntax Notation (CSN), a data definition language used to define a dataset's schema. The second is the Object Syntax Notation (OSN), a data language used to represent the object data adhering to the schema. The CSN and OSN are contained in the same datasetphysical file, along with a directory at the beginning of the file. The use of ASCII text and a straightforward syntax for both CSN and OSN ensure that they can be parsed easily and understood directly by users and developers. A SAIF dataset, with a .saf or .zip extension, is compressed using the zip archive format.

'''Schema Definition'''