An efficient data interface for heterogeneous distributed environments

A multi-language-based data interface system for heterogeneous distributed processing is introduced. A prototyped environment based on this system is discussed, and an evaluation of the prototyped system is presented. It is shown that by keeping the syntax of the specification language flexible and close to existing high-level languages, a user can learn the interface language quickly. Semantically, this data interface views structured data as consisting of two parts: the data values themselves and the representation of the structure among the data values. Through this separation, it is possible to have pipelined data type checking and data conversion operations.<
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