The Products Definitions Group, in their meeting on 14 Oct, proposed a Product Definitions Document to specify the structure of all Products used within the DP systems. They felt that a lot of the contents of the document could be auto-generated, and asked Javier to investigate.

HS assumed that the Product Definitions Document is really an ICD, defining the structure of all Products within DP. Therefore it is a matter of defining a schema (eg an XML schema) under which the structure of all Products could be defined. Product specifications written in accordance to this schema (eg XML documents) could then be used to generate the user-readable documentation.

SG, as member of the Product Definitions group, pointed out that the Product Definitions Document is really intended to be a reference guide for users accessing products. So such a document would need to specify the methods that can be used to access the data, in addition to specifying the structure for each product. Ideally, the method documentation would be auto-generated from the code itself.

HS felt that it was no longer clear what the Product Definitions group wishes were, and would seek clarification from the HPDG chair.