Data description and conversion architecture
R. A. Demers, Kenzo Yamaguchi · IBM Systems Journal · 1992
A data description and conversion architecture has been defined by IBM to enhance data interchange among Systems Application Architecture™ (SAA™) programming languages and systems. Its components, described in this paper, are (1) A Data Language (ADL), a programming language for describing data and specifying what data conversions are to be performed, (2) an object-oriented method of encoding ADL for efficient machine storage, transmission, and processing, and (3) programs that translate the data declarations of other programming languages to or from ADL. Also discussed is the application of the architecture to record-oriented files for SAA Distributed File Management.