Overview
ISO/IEC 10728:1993/Amd 2:1996 is an international amendment standard developed by ISO and IEC under JTC 1/SC 21. It extends the original IRDS (Information Resource Dictionary System) Services Interface standard by providing an official Ada language binding. This amendment specifies how IRDS services and data structures are mapped to the Ada programming language, enabling greater portability, integration, and interoperability of IRDS implementations in Ada environments. It is essential for organizations that develop or maintain robust enterprise data dictionaries, information resource management, and metadata repositories using Ada.
Key Topics
- IRDS Ada Language Binding: Defines a formal Ada package specification for the IRDS services interface, based on the general rules set out in the standard. The binding ensures Ada developers can implement and invoke IRDS services consistently.
- Portability and Interoperability: Hardware, software, and system dependencies are isolated in a dedicated Ada package ("Hardware Dependencies") to improve code portability across platforms and Ada compilers.
- Data Structures and Types: Provides clear mapping rules from IRDS and SQL data types to Ada types, making use of exceptions for error handling instead of traditional return codes.
- Tasking and Concurrency: Supports parallel IRDS sessions using Ada’s tasking features.
- String and List Handling: Uses Ada access types (pointers) to enable unbounded strings and manage lists such as columns efficiently.
- Integration with Ada Standards: Requires use of compilers conformant to ISO/IEC 8652 (Ada language standard), ensuring compatibility and future-proofing.
Applications
- Enterprise Data Management: Organizations managing complex data repositories can use the Ada binding to interface IRDS services seamlessly with their Ada-based applications for resource discovery, metadata management, and data governance.
- Interoperable Metadata Repositories: Promotes standardization and interoperability between IRDS-compliant systems, aiding organizations in data integration and enterprise architecture projects.
- Ada Software Development: Equips Ada developers with standardized access to IRDS interfaces, supporting software processes in industries where Ada is prominent, such as aerospace, defense, and government.
- Custom IRDS Implementations: Facilitates the creation of custom IRDS solutions tailored for Ada environments, with easy-to-maintain data model and interface abstractions.
Related Standards
- ISO/IEC 10728:1993 - Information Resource Dictionary System (IRDS) Services Interface
The base standard defining the IRDS services interface, offering core services, data structures, and concepts for information resource management.
- ISO/IEC 8652:1995 - Information technology – Programming languages – Ada
Defines the Ada programming language, to which the Ada binding for IRDS is mapped.
- ISO/IEC 9075 - Information technology – Database languages – SQL
Provides the SQL database language referenced for data type mappings between IRDS and Ada.
- ISO/IEC 10728:1993/Amd 1:1995
An earlier amendment adding language bindings for other programming languages and enhancing IRDS services.
Keywords: IRDS, ISO/IEC 10728, Ada language binding, information resource dictionary, metadata management, data interoperability, Ada programming standard, enterprise data systems, ISO/IEC standards, information technology standardization.