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Data Access Controllers

Introduction

Data Access Controllers (or, "DACs") let several applications easily access and modify MySky Files that are shared-in-common between them.
A DAC is loaded in an iframe, and the application loads a "DAC Library" for interacting with the APIs exposed by the DAC.
Imagine a user's personal profile that they want to use across applications on Skynet. A web app could load a User Profile DAC library which creates an iframe with the DAC code. This allows for API-like access to shared code for reading and modifying the user's profile. All write-access goes through the DAC and by exposing an API for modifications, no application needs to worry that another application will corrupt the profile data or break standard specifications of the shared file.
DACs allows for social web apps that share data between friends and across web apps.

Commonly Used DACs

The DACs commonly in use today implement data schemas developed in the community-organized Skystandards repository. The DAC libraries let application developers quickly implement and access MySky files adhering to these standards for seamless interoperability between Skynet applications.
  • Feed DAC – Implements the Feed and Post Skystandards. Despite their name, these schema can represent a versatile range of data, ranging from social posts, to blog articles, to chess matches.
  • Social DAC – Implements the User Relations Skystandard. This lets a user "follow" other MySky users and discover their published data across applications. Can be used for a Friends List or Social Graph.
  • User Profile DAC –Implement the Profile Skystandard. Allows a user to set a user profile and preferences that extend across the entire MySky ecosystem.
MySky and DACs were debuted with a hackathon, where a reference DAC call the Content Record DAC was provided for the community to build with. You may see it referenced, but it's not as powerful at representing complex data as later builds like the Feed DAC.