What is the ANDF technology?

The Architectural Neutral Distribution Format (ANDF) is a software porting technology, which makes it possible to develop shrink-wrapped software for open systems, independent of any particular processor architecture. The ANDF intermediate format is also often seen - and used - as a compiler technology. The specification defines an integration interface between the two major components of a multi-platform cross-compilation system. The compilation of the source code is turned into a two stage process. In the first (ANDF Producer) stage, the application is transcribed into an ANDF format which utilises generalised declarations of the API calls used, together with generalised definitions of data types, constants, and so on. In the second (ANDF Installer) stage, the entities generated in the first stage are linked together and then mapped onto a concrete machine through the use of processor-specific libraries which implement the API calls and data formats. This phase also includes the optimized mapping to machine code.

The ANDF standard is a result of a request for technology (RFT) by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) in May 1989. In June 1991, DRA's TenDRA (TDF) technology was selected by OSF to be the base technology for OSF's ANDF technology.

Today a lot of tools are available, frontends for many common languages and especially a great variety of installers is available.

Please find more detailed information about ANDF in our "Technical Info" section.

What is the ANDF Consortium?

The ANDF Consortium is a non commercial interdisciplinary group of companies and research institutions that use, support and develop the ANDF technology. See "Consortium" for more details. This web pages are built and maintained by University of Karlsruhe (see below) to keep the contents as independent as possible.

Contact Information

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Last change: 14. Februar 2002