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The technically minded reader might be interested in that the CDF data format is fully object-oriented and therefore consists of container objects holding other containers or instances of several frame classes. This creates a multi-dimensional object hierarchy which composes a page in CDF. Each field can be linked to a field in a specific record in the integrated relational SQL database. We combine pure object-oriented data design with a relational database. CDF files are independent files and therefore not stored in the database.
Frame objects hold all needed data about both their contents and their visualization format and about the links connected to them. As opposed to all DTP software known to us, a frame in CDF does know as much about it's contents and about formatting the contents as do:
• the database in the DDL, data description language, and
• the DTP software as far as formatting and positioning is concerned
• plus all the linking information needed.
CDF unifies all this data into one homogeneous object-oriented structure, which can easily write itself out in various formats such as HTML or XML and which was designed to cover all attributes needed by today's most popular DTP software such as QuarkXpress or InDesign.
The user profits from this intelligent data structure in many respects though he will neither notice it nor have to know anything about it.