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Introduction


Common Interchange Format

CIF (Common Interchange Format) is a text format specified by -
ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union) in the recommendation Z.106 to ease the interchange of graphical SDL specifications. SDL-CIF is an extension to SDL/PR and is based on the SDL/PR syntax and can be read and written by tools as well as users. The CIF constructs are expressed as comments preceding the PR code. The advantages of such a text format are:

However, CIF cannot be used as a storage format for files in the SDL Suite as it is required that specification stored in CIF file must be complete and correct.

CIF <-> SDT Converters

The CIF2SDT and SDT2CIF converters make the advantages of the CIF format available to the SDL Suite tools. The converters are implemented as a binary that can be run in a textual, command-line mode from the OS prompt, or as separate applications with graphical user interfaces (in Windows). The converter tools can also be launched from the Organizer using the menu choices Convert GR to CIF and Convert CIF to GR from the Generate menu.

The conversion between CIF and the binary format is performed as follows:

Note:

The CIF2SDT or SDT2CIF tools require the SDL Suite environment when running; meaning that there should be enough licenses available to be able to convert to/from CIF.

On UNIX, when running the CIF converters without having started the SDL Suite tools, the environment variable $telelogic must be set. This will be set by souring the file telelogic.sou in the installation directory.

Generally, one CIF file contains several SDL diagrams. However, the placement of generated diagrams can be specified by the user.


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