3B2 supports the CALS table model. This topic describes CALS, its uses and the advantages it offers.
CALS or Continuous Acquisition and Life-Cycle Support (formerly defined as Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistics Support) is a U.S. Department of Defence strategy for achieving effective creation, exchange and use of digital data.
The CALS table model has, over the years, been adopted as an industry standard for SGML and XML tables and is now maintained by the Oasis organisation.
The CALS table model can be used to mark up a variety of complex tables in technical documents and is currently used in a number of industries, for example, automotive/aerospace documentation and STM journals.
CALS tables may not be required by everyone, but if you are working with structured data and you have tabulated content within it, then you will require this tabulated data to be marked up also. Unless you are defining your own structure, DTD or Schema then CALS should be your first consideration to include as a subset to define a structure for your tabulated data. The CALS table model has been used for this purpose for many years, it is tried and tested and accomplishes well what it is built to do.
The toolbox nature of 3B2 makes it ideal to handle the CALS table model or any custom structured table markup. The way 3B2 handles data facilitates this coupled with its use of PIs for all table commands.
In order to further integrate standards into 3B2, a CALS Library is now provided by Advent free of charge. For further details see The Advent 3B2 Library
You can find out more about CALS by visiting:
OASIS is a non-profit making organisation concerned with the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards, including CALS tables:
See also