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The Format Conversion Approach  

The NDF data access library follows this latter approach by allowing format conversion utilities to be added to it, thereby allowing it to access a range of ``foreign'' data (i.e. data which are not stored in the native NDF format). This has the following advantages:

The main reason that this approach can be used is because of the relatively sophisticated formatting possibilities and data model presented by the NDF library, with its in-built extensibility. This makes it possible to convert foreign data into NDF format and back again without losing information, while the opposite process is not always possible.



next up previous
Next: How Format Conversion Operates
Up: INTRODUCTION
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Starlink System Note 20
R.F.Warren-Smith & D.S.Berry
17th July 2000
E-mail:ussc@star.rl.ac.uk

Copyright © 2000 Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils