The SIDL/babel description of a component does not (cannot) capture the information about what Ports are used or provided by a component. Hence the CCA XML specification has to cover that gap. In a production environment, much more data is also useful. Related to the CCA xml data is the core XML data used by Babel. That is, the SIDL interfaces are translated to an XML representation by Babel and this XML is used by code-generators or other tools that wish to provide a structured view of things like method signature rather than be limited to displaying raw source. In the CCA xml data specification, it is assumed that appropriate links to Babel generated xml files are used, rather than rolling everything into one giant xml file.
What may be in that CCA xml anyway? For the best answer, read the DTD. For a quick, incomplete summary, see the following table.
| The ports a component uses/provides |
| A running component's location in the network (if the component is the sort that is a network service) |
| The component's library location (if the component is a linkable library) |
| The library's header files, if any. |
| The component's source code location |
| The authors addresses |
| The support contact information |
| The platform(s) the component is built for. |