C/CIF - Chess Interchange Format
CIF - Namebase
A namebase is a container of data, each entry in the namebase will be referenced by an ID. For every item type in the namebase the specified ID must be unique. Normally the namebase will be written at the beginning of the archive, but this is not mandatory. But a namebase item must be written before it can be referenced. It is possible to split into more than one namebase section. It must be ensured that a namebase does not contain data without referencees, with one exception, it is allowed to write unreferenced phrases. Also namebases entries must not be duplicated, the reader of the archive trusts in this fact. An archive is corrupted if it contains duplicated namebase entries. A namebase entry is duplicated if it contains the same data as another namebase entry in any namebase section. Note that attributes like the unique ID does not belong to the data.
It is the decision of the application if he is writing a namebase, the compactness of a CCIF archive is not depending on this decision (not siginificantly). But it depends on the specific application if a namebase has an impact on the speed while reading the archive. The use of a namebase can be very useful for an application who is the creator of this archive.
The writer of the namebase can give the namebase a signature. It is not allowed to use a signature which is reserved for a specific application. The writer of an archive may use this signature, in combination with a specified database version in version, for a very fast processing of this archive. This works only if he can trust in the uniqueness of the signature.
Note that a game attribute must not have a reference to an exisiting namebase item, even if the game attribute would match an entry in any namebase section.
