Chapter 4. Protocols and data formats
Prev Part I. Introduction Next

Table of Contents

Protocol, transport, data
Data types
The Versit format
vCard structure
8-bit encoding
Selected vCard properties
Changes in vCard 3.0
Summary
iCalender and iTIP
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
SyncML

It´s a well known fact that computing devices such as the abacus were invented thousands of years ago. But it's not well known that the first use of a common computer protocol occured in the Old Testament. This, of course, was when Moses aborted the Egyptians‘ process with a control-sea...

--Tom Galloway

To classify the following specifications, we have to clarify first what is meant by the terms transport, protocol, and data.

Figure 4.1. Transport, Protocol, Data

Transport, Protocol, Data

A transport does the actual connection. Its purpose is to establish a connection between two machines so that they can exchange data. The most commonly used is TCP, but it could also be HTTP, OBEX, WML or IRDA.

The data is the actual data to be synchronized. It is usually marked up with very little extra information to be easily parsable. The data formats explained here are vCard, vCalender and iCalender.

A protocol describes how the data can be exchanged during a session. Some protocols demand special data structures (e.g. LDAP), others provide support for different ones (e.g. SyncML).

Prev Up Next
Palm Desktop Home Data types