This Standard ECMA-84 for a Data Presentation Protocol:
- defines abstract interactions between two presentation service users via the data presentation service (see Section II),
- defines the protocol to support the above service and its mapping into the underlying session service (see Section III),
- specifies the requirements for conformance with this protocol (see Section IV).
This Standard applies to the Presentation Layer for the Open Systems Interconnection (see ISO/7498). It defines a Presentation Protocol, the main purpose of which is to fully support the requirements of the Virtual File Protocol Standard (ECMA-85). However, it is designed with sufficient generality to be able to also support other (future) Application Layer protocols -standardized or not- with similar requirements, i.e. protocols allowing the exchange between application programs of predictable and repetitive data structures, composed of fields of different data types.
This Data Presentation Protocol is one of several presentation protocols currently defined by ECMA. As such, its definition follows a number of recommendations applicable to all these presentation protocols. At this moment, however, these recommendations are not published as external standards. Therefore, the service and protocol descriptions herein are complete, without reference to any generic standard.
This Standard defines what is needed for compatible interconnection between information processing systems. It does not define local interactions between a presentation service user and the presentation service. It in no way defines interlayer interfaces.