EXI Interoperability Framework ------------------------------ This distribution was developed by the Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) Working Group. It may be updated, replaced or obsoleted at any time. It is not intended as a means to validate conformance, but rather to evaluate the clarity of the EXI Format 1.0 Specification. However, it may also be use to facilitate EXI implementation development. Comments/questions should be sent to the public-exi@w3.org mailing list (public archive). Introduction ------------ The EXI interoperability framework is a testing framework developed by the W3C EXI working group for the purpose of conducting interoperability assessment. It uses XML test files designed to cover features in the EXI spec. The XML test files are fed to EXI implementations to generate EXI encodings. The encodings are decoded to produce a round-tripped XML to compare with the original XML test files. The EXI framework is built on top of another framework called Japex, which provides basic functionality for drawing charts, generating XML and HTML reports, etc. Japex is included in this distribution. Directory structure ------------------- 'candidates' directory contains sub-directories for each implementation. The implementation files and test drivers are located in these sub-directories. 'config' directory contains the Japex configuration files for running the tests. These configuration files are composed of configuration files for drivers and tests cases using XInclude. 'data' directory contains the XML test files. 'encodings' directory contains the EXI encodings generated for the working group testing. 'framework' directory contains the framework for running the tests. Each implementation extends a class in this framework to provide a test component. 'japex' directory contains the Japex distribution. Setting Up Implementations for Testing -------------------------------------- EXI implementations are not included in this distribution and must be downloaded and plugged into the framework to run the tests. To plug-in an implementation, you need to have both the EXI implementation and corresponding drivers. The framework is defined to run even if all the implementations used in the EXI WG testing are not available on your system. Instructions for obtaining the EXI implementations used in EXI WG testing are given below. Efficient XML - Please contact products@agiledelta.com using "W3C EXI interop framework" in the subject line to request access to Efficient XML files and the corresponding drivers. Exificient - Download the exificient.jar file(s) (http://exificient.sourceforge.net) and put it in the 'candidates/exificient/lib' directory. Drivers for Exificient are included in this distribution. Canon's EXI Implementation - Please contact youenn.fablet@crf.canon.fr using "W3C EXI interop framework" in the subject line to request access to Canon's EXI implementation and the corresponding drivers. See http://www.w3.org/XML/EXI/#implementations for a current list of EXI implementations. This distribution includes drivers for one of the implementations used in the EXI WG interoperability testing (Exificient). These drivers use the SAX API. Writing drivers for other Java implementations should be straightforward using the provided Exificient drivers as a template. To set up the implementation, it should be placed in 'candidates//lib/'. You will also need to update the following configuration files to trigger the use of the implementation: * 'config/property/interoperability/encoding/java/drivers.xml' for encoding tests * 'config/property/interoperability/decoding/java/drivers.xml' for decoding tests Note that the framework distribution already contains a set of EXI encoded files for each of the three EXI implementations used by the EXI WG in interoperability testing: Efficient XML, Exificient, and Canon's EXI implementation. How to Use ---------- You must have Ant (http://ant.apache.org) to build and run the framework. Open a command line tool and go to the root of the EXI interoperability framework folder. To run encoding tests, type: ant run-iot-encoding-classes-java -DtestCases=config/testCases-interop/all.xml The last parameter config/testCases-interop/all.xml' may be replaced by any other test configuration file. Encoding results will be put in a sub-folder of the 'reports/property/interoperability/encoding' folder. To run decoding tests, type: ant run-iot-decoding-classes-java -DtestCases=config/testCases-interop/all.xml -DexiDataDir=./encodings/Canon The ' config/testCases-interop/all.xml' parameter may be replaced by any other test configuration file. The './encodings/Canon' parameter may be replaced by any other encoding set. Three full encoding sets are provided in the test framework within the 'encodings' folder. Decoding results will be put in a sub-folder of the 'reports/property/interoperability/decoding' folder. Limitations ----------- This release of the framework supports Java-based EXI implementations only This release requires JDK 1.5. It has not been tested with other Java versions. The data-type aware method of comparing XML files (i.e., diff tool) has been maintained to avoid false difference reports when using the included test files. Other test files may trigger false difference reports. Depending on the local installation directory, path names used in this release may trigger path-length errors in some operating systems. Affected working group members resolved this by using a simple work-around of setting up the testing in environment in a local directory closer to the root.