This part of ISO/IEC 9592 specifies a file format suitable for the storage and retrieval of PHIGS structure definitions. The file format consists of an ordered set of elements that can be used to describe structures in a way that is compatible between systems of different architectures and implementations supporting dif-ferent programming languages.
The archive file is defined in such a way that, in addition to sequential access to the whole archive filé, random access to individ ual structure definitions is well-defined; whether this is available in any system that uses this part of ISO/IEC 9592 depends on the medium, the encoding and the implementation.
Clause 4 describes the organization of an archive file.
ISO/IEC 9592-3 specifies a clear-text encoding of the archive file format.