A Generic Model for Universal Data Storage and Conversion and Its Web Based Prototypical Implementation

This paper presents a prototypical, Web based data conversion framework and its underlying data representation principles which allow conversions from and to any data format. Therefore, a data model is proposed which allows storing values of arbitrary types, including inter-data dependencies and meta information. Furthermore, an Extensible Markup Language (XML) based model to describe data formats is provided which allows specifying programs to convert data represented in existing formats both from and to the proposed data model. It will be shown that these programs are Turing complete, thus allowing the same arbitrarily complex conversions which are possible with Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) or the C programming language. Finally, the components of a prototypical Web based implementation in form of a validator, a data converter and a data generator are described. In combination with a data editor, parts of this prototypical implementation are already employed in several use cases in the industry and other research projects to transform data between different formats.