MODCA

MO:DCA
Filename extension .mda, .ica, .mmr, .mca
Internet media type image/, document/
Type code MO:DCA
Magic number X'D3', X'D3A8', X'D3A9'
Developed by IBM
Type of format image format, Document file format

MO:DCA (Mixed Object:Document Content Architecture) is an IBM compound document format for text and graphics elements in a document. The 'Mixed Object' moniker refers to the fact that a MO:DCA file can contain multiple types of objects, including text, images, vector graphics, and even objects marked as 'barcodes'. An application can simply include a string of digits along with controls that identify a specific type of barcode, and the rendering of bars will be done on the output platform (physical printer hardware or software emulation). It supports Revisable Documents, which are editable like revisable-form DCA, Presentation Documents, which provide specific output formatting similar to DCA final-form, and Resource Documents, which hold control information such as fonts. A MO:DCA file consists of a sequential, ordered hierarchy of independent objects - documents, pages, data objects, and resource objects such as fonts and ICC profiles. Each object is delimited by begin/end structures, and objects to be rendered specify presentation parameters and resource requirements in structures called "environment groups". Since the pages in MO:DCA documents appear in sequential order, presentation can start as soon as the first page is received.[1]

Formats for specific objects are specified in OCAs (Object Content Architectures): PTOCA for Presentation and Text that has been formatted for output, GOCA for vector Graphics objects, IOCA for bitmapped Images and FOCA for Fonts. MO:DCA is implemented as IBM's AFP page description language. [2]

Contents

Considerations[3]

Encoding

MO:DCA-P carries text, image, and graphics data objects, therefore the data is a mixture of binary data and character data. The recommended content-transfer-encoding is base64.

Security

MO:DCA-P is a specification of final-form presentation data of an Image. It is not a programming language, does not contain any file operators, and therefore cannot corrupt a receiver's file system or programming environment. MO:DCA and Mixed Object Document Content Architecture are trademarks of the IBM Corporation.

Interoperability

MO:DCA-P defines interchange sets to support interoperability. Currently defined sets are Interchange Set 1 (IS/1) and Interchange Set 2 (IS/2).

Applications That Use MODCA

See also

External links

References