source: branches/PublicaMundi_David-devel/docs/kernel/what.rst @ 677

.. kernel-what:

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What is ZOO-Kernel ?
====================

ZOO-Kernel is the heart of the `ZOO-Project <http://zoo-project.org>`_ WPS platform. It is a WPS compliant implementation written in C language which provides a powerful and extensible WPS server. 

ZOO-Kernel implements and complies with the `WPS 1.0.0 <http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wps/>`_ standard edited by the `Open Geospatial Consortium <http://www.opengeospatial.org/>`_. It is able to perform the WPS operations as indicated in the OpenGIS |reg| specification, as listed bellow:

* **GetCapablities**: Returns service-level metadata information.It provides the list of available processing services.
* **DescribeProcess**: Returns a description of a process, including its supported input and output.
* **Execute**:  Launches computation and returns the output produced by a particular process.


First class WPS server
-----------------------

ZOO-Kernel is an extensible WPS server that makes your system more powerful. It provides a full-featured processing engine which runs on Linux, Mac OSX |trade| and Windows |trade| operating systems. ZOO-Kernel is a CGI program which works on common web servers (namely `Apache <http://httpd.apache.org/>`_ or `IIS <http://www.iis.net/>`_ |trade|). It can be seamlessly integrated to new or existing web platforms. 

ZOO-Kernel lets you process geospatial or non geospatial data using well formed WPS requests. The WPS server is able to manage and chain WPS Services (see ZOO-Services for examples) by loading dynamic libraries and source code written in different programming languages.  

Supported programming languages
........................................................

ZOO-Kernel is a **polyglot**. The software is written in a valid form of multiple programming languages, which performs the same operations independent of the programming language used to compile or interpret it.


============ =================== ========================= ============
**Language** **ServiceProvider** **DataStructure**         **Return**
------------ ------------------- ------------------------- ------------
C / C++      Shared Library      maps* M                   integer
Java         Class File          `HashMap`_                integer
Python       Module File         `Dictionary`_             integer
PHP          Script File         `Array`_                  integer
Perl         Script File                                   integer
Ruby         Script File         `Hash`_                   integer
Fortran      Shared Library      CHARACTER*(1024) M(10,30) integer
JavaScript   Script file         `Object`_ or Array        Object/Array
============ =================== ========================= ============

.. _`HashMap`: http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/HashMap.html
.. _`dictionary`: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/datastructures.html#dictionaries
.. _`Array`: http://php.net/manual/language.types.array.php
.. _`Object`: http://www.json.org/
.. _`Hash`: http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.2.0/Hash.html