File Formats I
We noted that Gateway should support input and output files with certain characteristics including
Native: internal format known to a particular application -- no checking of format matching if link output of one module to input of another
parameter input: special file constructed in XML defining basic parameters needed by a batch job
- Gateway automatically sets defaults, allows user input and applies any appropriate checks at front end
- User provides a bridge to convert Gateway file to form understood by batch job. This can use special Gateway utilities which provide Fortan, C and Java functions to get parameter values in backend user code
- We decided such parameters would need default, min, max, type and array dimensions to be specified in XML specification of these parameters