The typical standard committee has one database that is created to reflect each standard they develop. Normally, this database is divided into both simple and complex data concepts (data elements, data frames, messages and dialogs). Often one of the Tables in the database contains records which are re-used from other developed standards to provide data sharing and harmonization. The Mini-Edit tool handles the technical process of this data sharing, and it was originally created to promote more uniform data exchanges. These databases are routinely shared between the standards developers to coordinate work. A large set of both formal and ad hoc processing rules exist (taken from IEEE 1488/89, a standard on how data registries are to work) between the standards groups now, most of which are handled by Mini-Edit. Today, this sharing is a manual process; it is expected to become more automated in the future.
While the Mini-Edit tool was originally created for use in standards creation, it is increasingly being used by local deployment developers as a useful way to manipulate and extract data from multiple standards. Such users either create their own data records as needed, or add records to the local table of a database they have gathered from other standards. The typical application in this context is to merge multiple standards which are being used on a project, then use the tool to extract subsets, explore relationships, and create a set of ASN and XML for further use. The resulting locally created database can be documented as a reference baseline. Commonly available commercial tools can then be used to create code stubs and other artifacts of programming. Often this consists of removing details from the schemas of the standards (optional elements etc.) that are not required in the local deployment. Frankly, there is still a lot of profiling work to use an ITS standard at the local level. It is expected that Mini-Edit will continue to add features in support of this task.
