Defense and MIL-STD
FOSI
A formatting specification used with SGML and military publishing, describing how tagged content should be presented in the output.
Definition
What FOSI Means
FOSI stands for
Formatting Output Specification Instance
A FOSI separates presentation from content in the SGML world, in roughly the role a stylesheet plays elsewhere. Defense programs still encounter them because defense libraries still contain SGML.
Practically, a FOSI is often the reason a deliverable that validates correctly still looks wrong. Format conformance and content conformance are separate tests, and programs that assume one implies the other find out late.
Also written: formatting output specification instance
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Beyond the Definition
Knowing what a term means is the easy half. If you need to know what it obligates on your program, that is the conversation we are built for.