This standard is the reference software for ISO/IEC 15938 standard. It implements the normative components of the ISO/IEC 15938 standard, which are the descriptors and description schemes and their coding schemes.
Besides this, also informative components are implemented. These are, e.g, the procedures to extract descriptions and to match descriptions. This way, the reference software implements basic functionalities for individual descriptors and description schemes in the so-called key applications.
Besides the reference software source code, ISO/IEC 15938-6:2003 gives also a description of the reference software. The components of the key applications and their interfaces are specified.