External data formats

ODABA supports different external file formats, which can be accessed directly via property handle access functions or via file functions File(), ToFile() and FromFile().

Besides external file formats, several external file schema formats are supported. External file format and file schema format need not to correspond to each other, i.e. one may describe a flat file, which does not have a file schema format, in terms of an OIF schema or an OIF file in terms of an ESDF schema.