The Meta Schema

The SOS meta schema defines the SOS concepts in terms of its own data model. It is used by all methods dealing with already compiled schema modules for inspecting and manipulating these modules. That means, it is possible to design schema independent tools which include the meta schema and are thus enabled to access all objects by interpreting the appropriate schema module described in terms of the meta schema.

Each schema module is represented as an instance of class sos_Schema_module and all these instances are collected in one directory (Directory<sos_Schema_module>). All schema modules are therefore accessible by this directory. To obtain this entry point to all meta information, a static method is provided: sos_Schema_module::schema_dir().

The meta schema itself is a straightforward model of the syntax described in Section . It can be found in Appendix . Manual pages describing the classes listed there can be found in Appendix .