What is Chameleon?

Chameleon is an open-source web-page processing system. NetBrilliant uses Chameleon to perform specialized searches over the Internet. Chameleon's features and attributes are summarized below.

• Chameleon script language
  C++-like language for adapting Chameleon to a specific web site.
• Chameleon internal representation (IR)
  Data structures and classes for interfacing Chameleon to NetBrilliant and other applications.
• Chameleon engine
  Performs the actions specified in Chameleon scripts.

The diagram below displays how Chameleon fits into applications, between the application and Internet layers.

As shown, the application sends commands to and receives results from Chameleon, all within the IR. The commands available to the application are defined by the script Chameleon loads. For example, in NetBrilliant, a Search command will be defined for an online merchant. Chameleon translates the application's commands into Internet queries, and handles the results from the Internet, formatting them into the IR. The application is then free to access these results in a manageable form.

To learn more about Chameleon, how to write a Chameleon script for your web site, and how to incorporate Chameleon into your own applications, please visit the other sections of this article.

Chameleon was created by the NetBrilliant development team.
Copyright (c) 2000 Tenebril Inc.