RDS templates are XML documents that represent the data structure of specific message types.
The Publisher API and subscribers look up information about message formats in a set of RDS templates. The Publisher API uses templates to build the messages it sends to subscribers. Subscribers use templates to parse messages and store them in a database.
The use of RDS templates minimizes the network bandwidth required for message transmission. RDS templates also increase processing efficiency by minimizing the number of CPU cycles needed to process each message.
You must express all message types in the proper template format. A template includes all message fields, as well as the sequence of those fields. You must set each field within a message in the order in which it is defined in the template.
The Publisher API locates templates using a directory passed into the publisher initialization method. All files in that directory are read into memory. A publisher or subscriber may use one or more template files, and each file may contain one or more message definitions. Template files are included in a /templates folder. Each feed handler and subscriber has its own copy of these files.