Portable Application Description
Encyclopedia
Portable Application Description is a machine-readable document format designed by the Association of Shareware Professionals
.
It allows authors to provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way, using a simple XML schema
that allows webmasters and program librarians to automate program listings. PAD saves time for both authors and webmaster
s.
Each field in the specification has a regular expression
(regex) associated with it. The regex acts as a constraint on the field: if the regex matches, the field value is legal and if it fails to match, the field and the PAD file as a whole are out of spec. Only files where all fields in the file pass validation are properly called PAD files.
PAD uses a simplified XML syntax that does not use name/value pairs in tags. All tags are attribute-free. The official PAD specification uses unique tags. To extract the fields in the official specification, it is not necessary to descend through the tag path. If multiple languages are represented in a single PAD file, then correct parsing does require descending though the tag path because leaf tags are duplicated for each language supported.
Association of Shareware Professionals
The Association of Software Professionals , formerly Association of Shareware Professionals, is a professional association for authors of shareware computer software...
.
It allows authors to provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way, using a simple XML schema
XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself...
that allows webmasters and program librarians to automate program listings. PAD saves time for both authors and webmaster
Webmaster
A webmaster , also called a web architect, web developer, site author, or website administrator is a person responsible for maintaining one or many websites...
s.
Each field in the specification has a regular expression
Regular expression
In computing, a regular expression provides a concise and flexible means for "matching" strings of text, such as particular characters, words, or patterns of characters. Abbreviations for "regular expression" include "regex" and "regexp"...
(regex) associated with it. The regex acts as a constraint on the field: if the regex matches, the field value is legal and if it fails to match, the field and the PAD file as a whole are out of spec. Only files where all fields in the file pass validation are properly called PAD files.
PAD uses a simplified XML syntax that does not use name/value pairs in tags. All tags are attribute-free. The official PAD specification uses unique tags. To extract the fields in the official specification, it is not necessary to descend through the tag path. If multiple languages are represented in a single PAD file, then correct parsing does require descending though the tag path because leaf tags are duplicated for each language supported.
External links
- Official PAD site
- The Official PAD specification
- The Official PAD validator
- PAD Extensions Directory
- 30 or so free and commercial PAD products, services, and links
- PAD database and graphics updated weekly
- About PAD files (Software Industry Professionals)
- PAD Validation Tool
- Online PAD Generator
- PAD Submission