An Extensible Markup Language (XML) document type definition (DTD) standard for the structure and contents of HDF-EOS files and their contents, and an equivalent standard in the form of schemas, have been developed. (“HDF-EOS” and variants thereof are defined in the first two of four related articles immediately preceding this one.) More specifically, this standard describes the structure and contents of a single HDF-EOS 5 file based on the HDF-EOS model as published in Volumes 1 and 2 of the HDF-EOS Library Users Guide. The DTD and schemas are easy-to-use representations of a complex file format, enabling display of data in multiple ways.

By means of HDF5 XML software tools from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the user can transform HDF5 files into XML files or vice versa. Inasmuch as HDF-EOS 5 files are HDF5 files, the same software tools can be used to (1) transform any HDF-EOS 5 file into an XML file or vice versa or (2) convert, into an HDF-EOS 5 file, any XML file that conforms to the DTD or schemas.

This program was written by Richard Ullman of Goddard Space Flight Center; Jingli Yang of Earth Resources Technology, Inc.; and Muhammad Rabi of Global Science & Technology, Inc.

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