NetKernel uses the active: scheme to identify transformations and services. It is fundamentally equivalent to the ffcpl URI address scheme except that its focus is to identify services and transformations instead of resources. This distinction between the two addressing schemes and their intent provides clarity in NetKernel application code.

The syntax for the active scheme is

active: {service-name} [+{parameter-name} @ {parameter-value-uri}]+

For example, the following are frequently used active URIs:

active:xslt+operand@{uri}+operator+{uri}
active:beanshell+operator@{uri}
active:sqlQuery+sql@ffcpl:/customerQuery.xml

The parameter-value-uri can be another active: URI allowing for a tree-structured set of service calls and comprise a functional program.

In an active: URI functional program, nested calls to an active: URI the plus ("+") sign must be escaped by using the character sequence "%2B". The following example should be concatenated in one line but is shown on multiple lines for clarity:

active:xslt
  +operator@ffcpl:/style.xsl
  +operand@
    active:xslt
      %2Boperator@ffcpl:/filter.xsl
      %2Boperand@ffcpl:/data.xml      
    

If a system requires a deeply nested program structure it may be best to used DPML and establish a pipeline.