DODS provides three basic data objects:

• data descriptor structure (.dds) - syntactic metadata - rigid
  
  
• data attribute structure (.das) - semantic metadata - flexible
  
  
• data - the actual data in a binary structure

• .ascii - an ascii representation of the data.
  
  
• .info - a more readable version of the dds and das combined.
  
  
• .html form - a web based form that will help to build a DODS URL.