src/documentation/content/xdocs/plan/POI10Vision.xml - poi - Git at Google

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 <!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.1//EN" "document-v11.dtd">

 <document>
  <header>
   <title>POI 1.0 Vision Document</title>
   <authors>
    <person name="Andrew C. Oliver" email="acoliver@apache.org"/>
    <person name="Marcus W. Johnson" email="mjohnson@apache.org"/>
    </authors>
  </header>

  <body>

  <section><title>Preface</title>
         <p>
 		(21-Jan-02) While this document is just full of useful project
 		introductory information and I do suggest those interested in getting
 		involved in the project read it, it is woefully out of date.
 	</p>
 	<p>
 		We deliberately allowed this document to run out of date because it
 		is a good reflection of what the original vision was for POI 1.0.
 		You'll note that some of the terminology is not used in quite the same
 		way any longer.  I've made some minor corrections where reading this
 		confused me.  An example: in some places this document may refer to
 		POI API instead of POIFS API.  When this vision was written we had
 		an incomplete understanding of the project.
 	</p>
 	<p>
 		Lastly, the scope of the project expanded dramatically near the end
 		of the 1.0 cycle.  Our vision at the time was to focus merely on the
 		Excel port (having no idea how the project would grow or be received)
 		and provide the OLE 2 Compound Document port for others to port later
 		formats.  We now plan to spearhead these ports under the umbrella of
 		the POI project.  So, you've been warned.  Read on, but just realize
 		that we had a fuzzy view of things to come, and hindsight is 20-20.
 	</p>
 	<p>
 		If I recall major holes were: a complete understanding of the format
 		of OLE 2 Compound Document format, Excel file format, and exactly how
 		Cocoon 2 Serializers worked.  (that just about covers the whole range
 		huh?)
 	</p>
  </section>

  <section><title>1. Introduction</title>
   <section><title>1.1 Purpose of this document</title>
 	<p>
 		The purpose of this document is to
 		collect, analyze and define high-level requirements, user needs and
 		features of the HSSF Serializer for Cocoon 2 and related libraries.
 		The HSSF Serializer is a java class supporting the Serializer
 		interface from the Cocoon 2 project and outputting in a compatible
 		format of that used by the spreadsheet program Microsoft Excel '97.
 		The HSSF Serializer will be responsible for converting XML
 		spreadsheet-like documents into Excel-compatible XLS spreadsheets.
 	</p>
   </section>


   <section><title>1.2 Project Overview</title>
 	<p>
 		Many web apps today hit a brick wall
 		when it comes to the user request that they be able to easily
 		manipulate their reports and data extracts in the popular Microsoft
 		Excel spreadsheet format. This often causes inferior technologies to be
 		chosen for the project simply because they easily support this
 		format. This project seeks to extend existing XML, Java and Apache
 		Cocoon 2 project technologies by:
 	</p>

 		<ul>
 			<li>
 				providing an extensible library
 				(POIFS) which reads/writes in a compatable format to OLE 2 Compound
 				Document Format (aka Structured Storage Format) for easy
 			  	implementation of other document types;
 			</li>
 			<li>
 				providing a library (HSSF) for
 				manipulating spreadsheet data and outputting it in a compatible
 				format to Microsoft Excel XLS format;
 			</li>
 			<li>
 				and providing a Cocoon 2
 				Serializer (HSSFSerializer) for serializing XML documents as
 				Excel-compatible spreadsheets.
 			</li>
 		</ul>

   </section>
  </section>
  <section><title>2. User Description</title>
    <section><title>2.1 User/Market Demographics</title>
 	<p>
 		There are a number of enthusiastic
 		users of XML, UNIX and Java technology. Secondly, the Microsoft
 		solution for outputting Office Document formats often involves
 		actually manipulating the software as an OLE Server. This method
 		provides extremely low performance, extremely high overhead and is
 		only capable of handling one document at a time.
 	</p>
 	<ol>
 		<li>
 		Our intended audience for the HSSF
 		Serializer portion of this project are developers writing reports or
 		data extracts in XML format.
 		</li>
 		<li>
 		Our intended audience for the HSSF
 		library portion of this project is ourselves as we are developing
 		the Serializer and anyone who needs to write to Excel spreadsheets
 		in a non-XML Java environment or who has specific needs not
 		addressed by the Serializer.
 		</li>
 		<li>
 		Our intended audience for the
 		&quot;POIFS&quot; OLE 2 Compound Document format reader/writer is
 		ourselves as we are writing the HSSF library and secondly, anyone
 		wishing to provide other libraries for reading/writing OLE 2
 		Compound Document Format in Java.
 		</li>
 	</ol>
    </section>
    <section><title>2.2. User environment</title>
 	<p>
 		The users of this software shall be
 		developers in a Java environment on any Operating System or power
 		users who are capable of XML document generation/deployment.
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>2.3. Key User Needs</title>
 	<p>
 		The OLE 2 Compound Document format is
 		undocumented for all practical purposes and cryptic for all
 		impractical purposes. Developer needs in this area include
 		documentation and an easy to use library for reading and writing in
 		this format without requiring the developer to have intimate
 		knowledge of the format.
 	</p>
 	<p>
 		There is currently no good way to write
 		to Microsoft Excel documents from Java or from a non-Microsoft
 		Windows based platform for that matter. Developers need an easy to
 		use library that supports a reasonable feature set and allows
 		seperation of data from formatting/stylistic concerns.
 	</p>
 	<p>
 		There is currently no good way to
 		transform XML data to Microsoft Excel. Apache's Cocoon 2 project
 		supplies a complete framework for XML, but nothing for outputting in
 		Excel's XLS format. Developers and power users alike need a simple
 		method to output XML documents to Excel through server-side
 		processing.
 	</p>


    </section>
  </section>
  <section><title>3. Project Overview</title>
    <section><title>3.1. Project Perspective</title>
 	<p>
 		The produced code shall be licensed by
 		the Apache License as used by the Cocoon 2 project and maintained on
 		a project page until such time as the Cocoon 2 developers accept it
 		as a donation (at which time the copyright will be turned over to
 		them).
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>3.2. Project Position Statement</title>
 	<p>
 		For developers on a Java and/or XML
 		environment this project will provide all the tools necessary for
 		outputting XML data in the Microsoft Excel format. This project seeks
 		to make the use of Microsoft Windows based servers unnecessary for
 		file format considerations and to fully document the OLE 2 Compound
 		Document format. The project aims not only to provide the tools for
 		serializing XML to Excel's file format and the tools for writing to
 		that file format from Java, but also to provide the tools for later
 		projects to convert other OLE 2 Compound Document formats to pure
 		Java APIs.
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>3.3. Summary of Capabilities</title>
 	<p>
 		HSSF Serializer for Apache Cocoon 2
 	</p>
 	<table>
 		<tr>
 			<td>
 				Benefit
 			</td>
 			<td>
 				Supporting Features
 			</td>
 		</tr>
 		<tr>
 			<td>
 				Standard XML tag language for sheet data
 			</td>
 			<td>
 				Serializer will transform documents utilizing a defined tag
 				language
 			</td>
 		</tr>
 		<tr>
 			<td>
 				Utilize XML to output in Excel
 			</td>
 			<td>
 				Serializer will output in Excel
 			</td>
 		</tr>
 		<tr>
 			<td>
 				Java API to output in Excel on any platform
 			</td>
 			<td>
 				The project will develop an API that outputs in Excel using
 				pure Java.
 			</td>
 		</tr>
 		<tr>
 			<td>
 				Make it easy for developers to port other OLE 2 Compound
 				Document-based formats to Java.
 			</td>
 			<td>
 				The POIFS library will contain both a high-level abstraction
 				along with low-level constructs. The project will fully document
 				the OLE 2 Compound Document Format.
 			</td>
 		</tr>
 	</table>
    </section>
    <section><title>3.4. Assumptions and Dependencies</title>
 	<ul>
 		<li>
 			The HSSF Serializer will run on
 			any Java 2 supporting platform with Apache Cocoon 2 installed along
 			with the HSSF and POIFS APIs.
 		</li>
 		<li>
 			The HSSF API requires a Java 2
 			implementation and the POI API.
 		</li>
 		<li>
 			The POIFS API requires a Java 2
 			implementation.
 		</li>
 	</ul>
    </section>
  </section>
  <section><title>4. Project Features</title>
 	<p>
 		The POIFS API will include:
 	</p>
 	<ul>
 		<li>
 			Low level structures representing
 			the structures in a POI filesystems.
 		</li>
 		<li>
 			A low-level API for
 			creating/manipulating POI filesystems.
 		</li>
 		<li>
 			A set of high level interfaces
 			abstracting the user from the POI filesystem constructs and
 			representing it as a standard filesystem (Files, directories, etc)
 		</li>
 	</ul>
 	<p>
 		The HSSF API will include:
 	</p>
 	<ul>
 		<li>
 			Low level structures representing
 			the structures in an Excel file.
 		</li>
 		<li>
 			A low-level API for creating and
 			manipulating Excel files and writing them into POI filesystems.
 		</li>
 		<li>
 			A high level model and style
 			interface for manipulating spreadsheet data without knowing anything
 			about the Excel format itself.
 		</li>
 	</ul>
    <section><title>4.1 POI Filesystem API</title>
 	<p>
 		The POI Filesystem API includes:
 	</p>
 	<ul>
 		<li>An implementation of Big Blocks</li>
 		<li>An implementation of Small Blocks</li>
 		<li>An implementation of Header Blocks</li>
 		<li>An implementation of Block Allocation Tables</li>
 		<li>An implementation of Property Sets</li>
 		<li>An implementation of the POI
 		filesystem including functions to get and set the above constructs;
 		compound functions for reading/writing files/directories.
 		</li>
 		<li>An abstraction of the POI
 		filesystem providing interfaces representing Files, Directories,
 		FileSystems in normal terminology and encapulating the above
 		constructs.
 		</li>
 		<li>Full documentation of the POI file
 		format.
 		</li>
 		<li>Full documentation of the APIs and
 		interfaces provided through Javadoc, user documentation (aimed at
 		developers using the APIs)
 		</li>
 		<li>Examples aimed at teaching the
 		user to write code using POI. (titled: recipes for POI)
 		</li>
 		<li>Performance specifications.
 		(Example POI filesystems rated by some measure of complexity along
 		with system specifications and execution times for given operations)
 		</li>
 	</ul>
    </section>
    <section><title>4.2 HSSF API</title>
 	<p>
 		The HSSF API includes:
 	</p>
 	<ul>
 		<li>An implementation of Record
 		(binary 2 byte type followed by 2 byte size (n) followed by n bytes)</li>
 		<li>Implementations of many standard
 		record types mapping the data bytes to fields along with methods to
 		reserialize those fields</li>
 		<li>An implementation of the HSSF File
 		including functions to get/set the above constructs, create a blank
 		file with the minimum required record types and mappings between
 		getting/setting data and style in a workbook to the creation of
 		record types, and read HSSF files.</li>
 		<li>An abstraction of the HSSF file
 		format providing interfaces representing the HSSF File, HSSF
 		Workbook, HSSF Sheet, HSSF Column, HSSF Formulas in a manner
 		seperating the data from the styling and encapsulating the above
 		constructs.</li>
 		<li>Full documentation of the HSSF
 		file format (which will be a subset of the Excel '97 File format).
 		This must be done with care for legal reasons.</li>
 		<li>Full documentation of the APIs and
 		interfaces provided through Javadoc, user documentation (aimed at
 		developers using the apis).</li>
 		<li>Examples aimed at teaching
 		developers to use the APIs.
 		</li>
 		<li>Performance specifications.
 		(Example files rated by some measure of complexity along with system
 		specifications and execution times for given operations - possibly
 		the same files used for POI's tests)</li>
 	</ul>
    </section>
    <section><title>4.3 HSSF Serializer</title>
 	<p>
 		The HSSF Serializer subproject:
 	</p>
 	<ul>
 		<li>A class supporting the Cocoon 2
 		Serializer Interface.</li>
 		<li>An interface between the SAX
 		events and the HSSF APIs.</li>
 		<li>A specified tag language for using
 		with the Serializer.</li>
 		<li>Documentation on the tag language
 		for the HSSF Serializer</li>
 		<li>Normal javadocs.</li>
 		<li>Example XML files</li>
 		<li>Performance specifications.
 		(Example XML docs and stylesheets rated by some measure of
 		complexity along with system specifications and execution times)</li>
 	</ul>
    </section>
  </section>
  <section><title>5. Other Product Requirements</title>
    <section><title>5.1. Applicable Standards</title>
 	<p>
 		All Java code will be 100% pure Java.
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>5.2. System Requirements</title>
 	<p>
 		The minimum system requirements for POIFS are:
 	</p>
 	<ul>
 		<li>64 Mbytes memory</li>
 		<li>Java 2 environment</li>
 		<li>Pentium or better processor (or equivalent on other platforms)</li>
 	</ul>
 	<p>
 		The minimum system requirements for HSSF are:
 	</p>
 	<ul>
 		<li>64 Mbytes memory</li>
 		<li>Java 2 environment</li>
 		<li>Pentium or better processor (or equivalent on other platforms)</li>
 		<li>POIFS API</li>
 	</ul>
 	<p>
 		The minimum system requirements for the HSSF Serializer are:
 	</p>
 	<ul>
 		<li>64 Mbytes memory</li>
 		<li>Java 2 environment</li>
 		<li>Pentium or better processor (or equivalent on other platforms)</li>
 		<li>Cocoon 2</li>
 		<li>HSSF API</li>
 		<li>POI API</li>
 	</ul>
    </section>
    <section><title>5.3. Performance Requirements</title>
 	<p>
 		All components must perform well enough
 		to be practical for use in a webserver environment (especially
 		Cocoon2/Tomcat/Apache combo)
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>5.4. Environmental Requirements</title>
 	<p>
 		The software will run primarily in
 		developer environments. We should make some allowances for
 		not-highly-technical users to write XML documents for the HSSF
 		Serializer. All other components will assume intermediate Java 2
 		knowledge. No XML knowledge will be required except for using the
 		HSSF Serializer. As much documentation as is practical shall be
 		required for all components as XML is relatively new, and the
 		concepts introduced for writing spreadsheets and to POI filesystems
 		will be brand new to Java and many Java developers.
 	</p>
    </section>
  </section>
  <section><title>6. Documentation Requirements</title>
    <section><title>6.1 POI Filesystem</title>
 	<p>
 		The filesystem as read and written by
 		POI shall be fully documented and explained so that the average Java
 		developer can understand it.
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>6.2. POI API</title>
 	<p>
 		The POI API will be fully documented
 		through Javadoc. A walkthrough of using the high level POI API shall
 		be provided. No documentation outside of the Javadoc shall be
 		provided for the low-level POI APIs.
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>6.3. HSSF File Format</title>
 	<p>
 		The HSSF File Format as implemented by
 		the HSSF API will be fully documented. No documentation will be
 		provided for features that are not supported by HSSF API that are
 		supported by the Excel 97 File Format. Care will be taken not to
 		infringe on any &quot;legal stuff&quot;.
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>6.4. HSSF API</title>
 	<p>
 		The HSSF API will be documented by
 		javadoc. A walkthrough of using the high level HSSF API shall be
 		provided. No documentation outside of the Javadoc shall be provided
 		for the low level HSSF APIs.
 	</p>
    </section>

    <section><title>6.5. HSSF Serializer</title>
 	<p>
 		The HSSF Serializer will be documented
 		by javadoc.
 	</p>
    </section>

    <section><title>6.6 HSSF Serializer Tag language</title>
 	<p>
 		The XML tag language along with
 		function and usage shall be fully documented. Examples will be
 		provided as well.
 	</p>
    </section>
  </section>
  <section><title>7. Terminology</title>
    <section><title>7.1 Filesystem</title>
 	<p>
 		filesystem shall refer only to the POI formatted archive.
 	</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>7.2 File</title>
 	<p>
 		file shall refer to the embedded data stream within a
 		POI filesystem. This will be the actual embedded document.
 	</p>
    </section>
  </section>
 </body>
 </document>
	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
	<!--
	====================================================================
	Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
	contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
	this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
	The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
	(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
	the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

	http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

	Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
	distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
	WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
	See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
	limitations under the License.
	====================================================================
	-->
	<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.1//EN" "document-v11.dtd">

	<document>
	<header>
	<title>POI 1.0 Vision Document</title>
	<authors>
	<person name="Andrew C. Oliver" email="acoliver@apache.org"/>
	<person name="Marcus W. Johnson" email="mjohnson@apache.org"/>
	</authors>
	</header>

	<body>

	<section><title>Preface</title>
	<p>
	(21-Jan-02) While this document is just full of useful project
	introductory information and I do suggest those interested in getting
	involved in the project read it, it is woefully out of date.
	</p>
	<p>
	We deliberately allowed this document to run out of date because it
	is a good reflection of what the original vision was for POI 1.0.
	You'll note that some of the terminology is not used in quite the same
	way any longer. I've made some minor corrections where reading this
	confused me. An example: in some places this document may refer to
	POI API instead of POIFS API. When this vision was written we had
	an incomplete understanding of the project.
	</p>
	<p>
	Lastly, the scope of the project expanded dramatically near the end
	of the 1.0 cycle. Our vision at the time was to focus merely on the
	Excel port (having no idea how the project would grow or be received)
	and provide the OLE 2 Compound Document port for others to port later
	formats. We now plan to spearhead these ports under the umbrella of
	the POI project. So, you've been warned. Read on, but just realize
	that we had a fuzzy view of things to come, and hindsight is 20-20.
	</p>
	<p>
	If I recall major holes were: a complete understanding of the format
	of OLE 2 Compound Document format, Excel file format, and exactly how
	Cocoon 2 Serializers worked. (that just about covers the whole range
	huh?)
	</p>
	</section>

	<section><title>1. Introduction</title>
	<section><title>1.1 Purpose of this document</title>
	<p>
	The purpose of this document is to
	collect, analyze and define high-level requirements, user needs and
	features of the HSSF Serializer for Cocoon 2 and related libraries.
	The HSSF Serializer is a java class supporting the Serializer
	interface from the Cocoon 2 project and outputting in a compatible
	format of that used by the spreadsheet program Microsoft Excel '97.
	The HSSF Serializer will be responsible for converting XML
	spreadsheet-like documents into Excel-compatible XLS spreadsheets.
	</p>
	</section>


	<section><title>1.2 Project Overview</title>
	<p>
	Many web apps today hit a brick wall
	when it comes to the user request that they be able to easily
	manipulate their reports and data extracts in the popular Microsoft
	Excel spreadsheet format. This often causes inferior technologies to be
	chosen for the project simply because they easily support this
	format. This project seeks to extend existing XML, Java and Apache
	Cocoon 2 project technologies by:
	</p>

	<ul>
	<li>
	providing an extensible library
	(POIFS) which reads/writes in a compatable format to OLE 2 Compound
	Document Format (aka Structured Storage Format) for easy
	implementation of other document types;
	</li>
	<li>
	providing a library (HSSF) for
	manipulating spreadsheet data and outputting it in a compatible
	format to Microsoft Excel XLS format;
	</li>
	<li>
	and providing a Cocoon 2
	Serializer (HSSFSerializer) for serializing XML documents as
	Excel-compatible spreadsheets.
	</li>
	</ul>

	</section>
	</section>
	<section><title>2. User Description</title>
	<section><title>2.1 User/Market Demographics</title>
	<p>
	There are a number of enthusiastic
	users of XML, UNIX and Java technology. Secondly, the Microsoft
	solution for outputting Office Document formats often involves
	actually manipulating the software as an OLE Server. This method
	provides extremely low performance, extremely high overhead and is
	only capable of handling one document at a time.
	</p>
	<ol>
	<li>
	Our intended audience for the HSSF
	Serializer portion of this project are developers writing reports or
	data extracts in XML format.
	</li>
	<li>
	Our intended audience for the HSSF
	library portion of this project is ourselves as we are developing
	the Serializer and anyone who needs to write to Excel spreadsheets
	in a non-XML Java environment or who has specific needs not
	addressed by the Serializer.
	</li>
	<li>
	Our intended audience for the
	"POIFS" OLE 2 Compound Document format reader/writer is
	ourselves as we are writing the HSSF library and secondly, anyone
	wishing to provide other libraries for reading/writing OLE 2
	Compound Document Format in Java.
	</li>
	</ol>
	</section>
	<section><title>2.2. User environment</title>
	<p>
	The users of this software shall be
	developers in a Java environment on any Operating System or power
	users who are capable of XML document generation/deployment.
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>2.3. Key User Needs</title>
	<p>
	The OLE 2 Compound Document format is
	undocumented for all practical purposes and cryptic for all
	impractical purposes. Developer needs in this area include
	documentation and an easy to use library for reading and writing in
	this format without requiring the developer to have intimate
	knowledge of the format.
	</p>
	<p>
	There is currently no good way to write
	to Microsoft Excel documents from Java or from a non-Microsoft
	Windows based platform for that matter. Developers need an easy to
	use library that supports a reasonable feature set and allows
	seperation of data from formatting/stylistic concerns.
	</p>
	<p>
	There is currently no good way to
	transform XML data to Microsoft Excel. Apache's Cocoon 2 project
	supplies a complete framework for XML, but nothing for outputting in
	Excel's XLS format. Developers and power users alike need a simple
	method to output XML documents to Excel through server-side
	processing.
	</p>


	</section>
	</section>
	<section><title>3. Project Overview</title>
	<section><title>3.1. Project Perspective</title>
	<p>
	The produced code shall be licensed by
	the Apache License as used by the Cocoon 2 project and maintained on
	a project page until such time as the Cocoon 2 developers accept it
	as a donation (at which time the copyright will be turned over to
	them).
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>3.2. Project Position Statement</title>
	<p>
	For developers on a Java and/or XML
	environment this project will provide all the tools necessary for
	outputting XML data in the Microsoft Excel format. This project seeks
	to make the use of Microsoft Windows based servers unnecessary for
	file format considerations and to fully document the OLE 2 Compound
	Document format. The project aims not only to provide the tools for
	serializing XML to Excel's file format and the tools for writing to
	that file format from Java, but also to provide the tools for later
	projects to convert other OLE 2 Compound Document formats to pure
	Java APIs.
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>3.3. Summary of Capabilities</title>
	<p>
	HSSF Serializer for Apache Cocoon 2
	</p>
	<table>
	<tr>
	<td>
	Benefit
	</td>
	<td>
	Supporting Features
	</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td>
	Standard XML tag language for sheet data
	</td>
	<td>
	Serializer will transform documents utilizing a defined tag
	language
	</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td>
	Utilize XML to output in Excel
	</td>
	<td>
	Serializer will output in Excel
	</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td>
	Java API to output in Excel on any platform
	</td>
	<td>
	The project will develop an API that outputs in Excel using
	pure Java.
	</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td>
	Make it easy for developers to port other OLE 2 Compound
	Document-based formats to Java.
	</td>
	<td>
	The POIFS library will contain both a high-level abstraction
	along with low-level constructs. The project will fully document
	the OLE 2 Compound Document Format.
	</td>
	</tr>
	</table>
	</section>
	<section><title>3.4. Assumptions and Dependencies</title>
	<ul>
	<li>
	The HSSF Serializer will run on
	any Java 2 supporting platform with Apache Cocoon 2 installed along
	with the HSSF and POIFS APIs.
	</li>
	<li>
	The HSSF API requires a Java 2
	implementation and the POI API.
	</li>
	<li>
	The POIFS API requires a Java 2
	implementation.
	</li>
	</ul>
	</section>
	</section>
	<section><title>4. Project Features</title>
	<p>
	The POIFS API will include:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>
	Low level structures representing
	the structures in a POI filesystems.
	</li>
	<li>
	A low-level API for
	creating/manipulating POI filesystems.
	</li>
	<li>
	A set of high level interfaces
	abstracting the user from the POI filesystem constructs and
	representing it as a standard filesystem (Files, directories, etc)
	</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
	The HSSF API will include:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>
	Low level structures representing
	the structures in an Excel file.
	</li>
	<li>
	A low-level API for creating and
	manipulating Excel files and writing them into POI filesystems.
	</li>
	<li>
	A high level model and style
	interface for manipulating spreadsheet data without knowing anything
	about the Excel format itself.
	</li>
	</ul>
	<section><title>4.1 POI Filesystem API</title>
	<p>
	The POI Filesystem API includes:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>An implementation of Big Blocks</li>
	<li>An implementation of Small Blocks</li>
	<li>An implementation of Header Blocks</li>
	<li>An implementation of Block Allocation Tables</li>
	<li>An implementation of Property Sets</li>
	<li>An implementation of the POI
	filesystem including functions to get and set the above constructs;
	compound functions for reading/writing files/directories.
	</li>
	<li>An abstraction of the POI
	filesystem providing interfaces representing Files, Directories,
	FileSystems in normal terminology and encapulating the above
	constructs.
	</li>
	<li>Full documentation of the POI file
	format.
	</li>
	<li>Full documentation of the APIs and
	interfaces provided through Javadoc, user documentation (aimed at
	developers using the APIs)
	</li>
	<li>Examples aimed at teaching the
	user to write code using POI. (titled: recipes for POI)
	</li>
	<li>Performance specifications.
	(Example POI filesystems rated by some measure of complexity along
	with system specifications and execution times for given operations)
	</li>
	</ul>
	</section>
	<section><title>4.2 HSSF API</title>
	<p>
	The HSSF API includes:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>An implementation of Record
	(binary 2 byte type followed by 2 byte size (n) followed by n bytes)</li>
	<li>Implementations of many standard
	record types mapping the data bytes to fields along with methods to
	reserialize those fields</li>
	<li>An implementation of the HSSF File
	including functions to get/set the above constructs, create a blank
	file with the minimum required record types and mappings between
	getting/setting data and style in a workbook to the creation of
	record types, and read HSSF files.</li>
	<li>An abstraction of the HSSF file
	format providing interfaces representing the HSSF File, HSSF
	Workbook, HSSF Sheet, HSSF Column, HSSF Formulas in a manner
	seperating the data from the styling and encapsulating the above
	constructs.</li>
	<li>Full documentation of the HSSF
	file format (which will be a subset of the Excel '97 File format).
	This must be done with care for legal reasons.</li>
	<li>Full documentation of the APIs and
	interfaces provided through Javadoc, user documentation (aimed at
	developers using the apis).</li>
	<li>Examples aimed at teaching
	developers to use the APIs.
	</li>
	<li>Performance specifications.
	(Example files rated by some measure of complexity along with system
	specifications and execution times for given operations - possibly
	the same files used for POI's tests)</li>
	</ul>
	</section>
	<section><title>4.3 HSSF Serializer</title>
	<p>
	The HSSF Serializer subproject:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>A class supporting the Cocoon 2
	Serializer Interface.</li>
	<li>An interface between the SAX
	events and the HSSF APIs.</li>
	<li>A specified tag language for using
	with the Serializer.</li>
	<li>Documentation on the tag language
	for the HSSF Serializer</li>
	<li>Normal javadocs.</li>
	<li>Example XML files</li>
	<li>Performance specifications.
	(Example XML docs and stylesheets rated by some measure of
	complexity along with system specifications and execution times)</li>
	</ul>
	</section>
	</section>
	<section><title>5. Other Product Requirements</title>
	<section><title>5.1. Applicable Standards</title>
	<p>
	All Java code will be 100% pure Java.
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>5.2. System Requirements</title>
	<p>
	The minimum system requirements for POIFS are:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>64 Mbytes memory</li>
	<li>Java 2 environment</li>
	<li>Pentium or better processor (or equivalent on other platforms)</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
	The minimum system requirements for HSSF are:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>64 Mbytes memory</li>
	<li>Java 2 environment</li>
	<li>Pentium or better processor (or equivalent on other platforms)</li>
	<li>POIFS API</li>
	</ul>
	<p>
	The minimum system requirements for the HSSF Serializer are:
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>64 Mbytes memory</li>
	<li>Java 2 environment</li>
	<li>Pentium or better processor (or equivalent on other platforms)</li>
	<li>Cocoon 2</li>
	<li>HSSF API</li>
	<li>POI API</li>
	</ul>
	</section>
	<section><title>5.3. Performance Requirements</title>
	<p>
	All components must perform well enough
	to be practical for use in a webserver environment (especially
	Cocoon2/Tomcat/Apache combo)
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>5.4. Environmental Requirements</title>
	<p>
	The software will run primarily in
	developer environments. We should make some allowances for
	not-highly-technical users to write XML documents for the HSSF
	Serializer. All other components will assume intermediate Java 2
	knowledge. No XML knowledge will be required except for using the
	HSSF Serializer. As much documentation as is practical shall be
	required for all components as XML is relatively new, and the
	concepts introduced for writing spreadsheets and to POI filesystems
	will be brand new to Java and many Java developers.
	</p>
	</section>
	</section>
	<section><title>6. Documentation Requirements</title>
	<section><title>6.1 POI Filesystem</title>
	<p>
	The filesystem as read and written by
	POI shall be fully documented and explained so that the average Java
	developer can understand it.
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>6.2. POI API</title>
	<p>
	The POI API will be fully documented
	through Javadoc. A walkthrough of using the high level POI API shall
	be provided. No documentation outside of the Javadoc shall be
	provided for the low-level POI APIs.
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>6.3. HSSF File Format</title>
	<p>
	The HSSF File Format as implemented by
	the HSSF API will be fully documented. No documentation will be
	provided for features that are not supported by HSSF API that are
	supported by the Excel 97 File Format. Care will be taken not to
	infringe on any "legal stuff".
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>6.4. HSSF API</title>
	<p>
	The HSSF API will be documented by
	javadoc. A walkthrough of using the high level HSSF API shall be
	provided. No documentation outside of the Javadoc shall be provided
	for the low level HSSF APIs.
	</p>
	</section>

	<section><title>6.5. HSSF Serializer</title>
	<p>
	The HSSF Serializer will be documented
	by javadoc.
	</p>
	</section>

	<section><title>6.6 HSSF Serializer Tag language</title>
	<p>
	The XML tag language along with
	function and usage shall be fully documented. Examples will be
	provided as well.
	</p>
	</section>
	</section>
	<section><title>7. Terminology</title>
	<section><title>7.1 Filesystem</title>
	<p>
	filesystem shall refer only to the POI formatted archive.
	</p>
	</section>
	<section><title>7.2 File</title>
	<p>
	file shall refer to the embedded data stream within a
	POI filesystem. This will be the actual embedded document.
	</p>
	</section>
	</section>
	</body>
	</document>