Abstract: A method and apparatus for conversion of a document from one format to another format. The invention inputs a binary file and determines the cleartext name for each ASN.1 tag in the binary file. An element table is used to store the features of each element and the sub-elements which are permitted to appear under each element are stored in sub-element linked list data structures referred to by the element table. It is possible for the binary encoding to be in an indefinite or definite length format and an element stack is used to keep track of the length of the binary file. The element stack is also used to keep track of the elements which are being processed in the hierarchy of the document. After a binary element is converted, the information pertaining to the cleartext representation of the binary element is stored in a double linked list data structure which refers to a previous element and a next element.

Abstract: A method and system for converting a document from a clear text representation to a binary representation. There is not a one to one correspondence between the two formats in SPDL. In order to determine what binary representation is needed for a clear text tag which can have a plurality of binary representations, it is necessary to actually process at least portions of the document for presentation (in contrast to just converting the document to a new format) in order to determine which binary representation of the tag is to be used. A stack is used to keep track of the binary elements as they are being converted. This allows for an efficient handling of the binary length encoding because the length of the binary representation of the different hierarchical levels of a document are not known until the respective hierarchical levels are encoded.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating a file which conforms to the requirements of a computer language and does not require the user to type out the desired commands for a file being created. A list of commands is displayed for a user to select and when a user selects a specific command, the user is prompted for additional information concerning the command, if this information is required. The user is given choices of commands or elements which are to appear below the previously selected element or command. A stack is used to keep track of the different elements in a hierarchical structure of the computer language. When an element is first placed into a file being generated, it is pushed onto the stack. As elements below the current element in the hierarchy are being processed, they are pushed on top of the previous elements. When the elements are finished, they are popped off of and elements requiring end-tags which signify the end of the element are then inserted into the generated file.

Abstract: A method and system to efficiently and automatically determine whether a document to be processed and printed has been encoded in a binary or clear text representation of a page description language. The document is initially processed as if it were binary encoded and the first three tags of the document are examined to determine if they contain the object identifier having the value "28 CF 44 00 H". If one of the first three tags has this value, an encoding flag is set to indicate the document is a binary SPDL file and the recognition process is terminated. If the document is determined not to be a binary SPDL file it is examined to see if it is clear text SPDL file. The beginning of the document is examined to determine if it contains zero or more S separators which are defined to be spaces, carriage returns, line feeds, and tabs followed by the characters "<!DOCTYPE" regardless of capitalization followed by one or more S separators followed by the characters "SPDL".

Abstract: A system and method for converting a textual representation of nested procedures into a binary format where the binary format contains the length of each procedure at the beginning of the procedure. The system can be implemented using a single temporary storage buffer which is globally available to each procedure and procedures nested within. The first clear text procedure of a group of nested procedures causes the temporary storage buffer to be created. Memory locations are reserved in the temporary storage buffer for storing the length of the procedure, and then the procedure is converted to binary format which is then appended to the end of the buffer after the space reserved for the length of the procedure. Procedures which are nested within the first procedure also have space reserved in the buffer for length information and the binary representations of the nested procedures are appended onto the end of the buffer.