Chameleon supports three types of interfaces, static (which uses stubcode), a dynamic runtime interface, and XML translation. This table summarizes the types of interfaces:

Interface Type	Stub code	Description
Dynamic		Tables are discovered at runtime, offers more flexibility, but is harder to use.
Static interface		Use generated stubcode which describe tables and messages in the message definition file. Less flexible but easier to use.
XML Translation		Simple functions to translate from HL7 to XML and back again.

The message definition file is important for each of these types of interfaces since the file contains the actual messages, tables, and mappings defined for a given interface.

We will start by discussing how the static interface of Chameleon can be used.