The IFW HL Core Package provides some common utilities of general interest to the other ICW components and application development in general.It provides the following two main parts:

• CTD: Common Tools & Definitions.
• DIT: Data Interface Tools.

Former provides general purpose tools:

• Common constants.
• Tools for string manipulation.
• Tools for converting between various data types.
• Various system level tools.
• Tools to handling files in the ELT ICS directory structure, e.g. searching for files.
• A SCXML/OPC UA XML profile driven server framework.

The DIT sub-packages provides features to handle:

• Data Interface Dictionaries (DID).
• FITS files.

The DID library provides the following:

• A C++ library to load and use DIDs from C++ programs.
• A number of DIDs, providing keyword definitions of common interest.

The FITS Library convenience functions to create FITS files, supported by the DID keyword definitions.