7. A computer-implemented method for exposing extended information regarding a human interface infrastructure (HII) component stored in a human interface infrastructure (HII) database, the method comprising computer-implemented operations for: computing the extended information regarding the HII component at the time that a package containing the HII component is registered with the HII database; exposing a method within an extensible firmware environment for retrieving the extended information regarding the HII component from the HII database, the exposed method accessible by calling programs; receiving a call to the method from one of the calling programs; and in response to the call, retrieving the extended information from the HII database and returning the extended information to the one of the calling programs in response to the call.
7. A computer-implemented method for exposing extended information regarding a human interface infrastructure (HII) component stored in a human interface infrastructure (HII) database, the method comprising computer-implemented operations for: computing the extended information regarding the HII component at the time that a package containing the HII component is registered with the HII database; exposing a method within an extensible firmware environment for retrieving the extended information regarding the HII component from the HII database, the exposed method accessible by calling programs; receiving a call to the method from one of the calling programs; and in response to the call, retrieving the extended information from the HII database and returning the extended information to the one of the calling programs in response to the call. 14. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising computer-implemented operations for: receiving a pointer to a memory buffer from the one of the calling programs, the one of the calling programs allocating the memory buffer large enough to store the string based on the length of the string and the number of narrow screen glyphs; and upon receiving the pointer to the memory buffer from the one of the calling programs, copying the HII component from the HII database to the allocated memory buffer.