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visits since 17 February 2001 |
yaxdf (Yet Another Extended Data Framework) is many things. It is a simple tag-based, table-oriented, data format related to STAR and CIF. It is a complex tree-oriented markup languages related to XML. It is a structure within which to convey MIME data. It is a static. It is dynamic and object oriented. It is well-defined and it is evolving. It is what its users make of it.
The relationship of yaxdf to other data frameworks is similar to that of English to other natural languages. English is an agglomeration of multiple languages, which has enough common structure to allow those who speak it to communicate, but which has enough of "give" to absorb any useful new words and modes of expression that people may find useful.
In order to allow yaxdf to be flexible, it is defined on two levels: meta-yaxdf, within which the abstract data definitions involved are defined, and external-yaxdf, which allows two major alternate modes of external representation, a simple tag-value table-oriented format realted to CIF, and a complex nested parametrized tag, tree-oriented formated related to XML. In order to avoid certain legal issues, we do not claim that either external representation is CIF or is XML, but with some care, it should be possible to create data sets some of which will be acceptable to a proper CIF parser and other data sets which will be acceptable to a proper XML parser. Additional modes of external representation are permitted.
If you are interested in this subject, please return to this site in a few weeks and you should find considerably more material on this subject.