Re: Data Model WD

Dear Jeni,

Thank you very much for your comments.
See my replies below.

Best regards,
Marton Nagy


> Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 06:06:34 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Jeni Tennison <jeni@jenitennison.com>
> Message-ID: <251473323306.20020509110629@jenitennison.com>
> To: public-qt-comments@w3.org
> Subject: Data Model WD
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Congratuations on the new version of the Data Model WD. On the whole,
> it's very clear and well put-together.
> 
> I see that you're considering what to do about anonymous types. I
> don't think that using the empty sequence as their name will help,
> since that's the only method of access to type information, and would
> imply that:
> 
> <xs:element name="foo">
>   <xs:complexType>...</xs:complexType>
> </xs:element>
> 
> and:
> 
> <xs:element name="bar">
>   <xs:simpleType>...</xs:simpleType>
> </xs:element>
> 
> had the same type. But I think that it's important, particularly for
> simple types, that they're not just ignored or substituted for
> xs:anySimpleType, especially if you consider anonymous simple type
> definitions nested within list and union types. For example:
> 
> <xs:simpleType name="listOfDatesIn2002">
>   <xs:list>
>     <xs:simpleType>
>       <xs:restriction base="xs:date">
>         <xs:minInclusive value="2002-01-01" />
>         <xs:maxExclusive value="2003-01-01" />
>       </xs:restriction>
>     </xs:simpleType>
>   </xs:list>
> </xs:simpleType>
> 
> Say I had:
> 
>   <holidays xsi:type="listOfDatesIn2002">
>     2002-05-06 2002-06-03
>   </holidays>
> 
> I can't find the part of the Data Model WD that explains how the
> [schema normalized value], which is the string "2002-05-06 2002-06-03"
> gets turned into a sequence of AtomicValues, but I assume that's done
> by splitting the string at spaces and querying the element's type
> definition to get hold of the item type definition somehow (a
> particularly complicated process when the item type is a union type).
> 
> It would be very unhelpful to have these values interpreted as strings
> when they're obviously dates. I think that, at least with anonymous
> simple types, it would be more helpful to use the base type of the
> anonymous simple type than xs:anySimpleType. Perhaps anonymous complex
> types could be treated similarly, although that case is more
> complicated because of the different types of derivation that could
> occur.
> 

You are right. At the time of the publication we took a very simple
approach for handling restrictions of simple types: we just used
xs:anySimpleType to label those. Since then, we have revisited this
decision and will likely do what you suggest: label these restrictions
with the name of the base type (if that has a name), or walk up the
type hierarchy till we find one that is named and use that.

Also note that the data model already handles list types.
If your example would just be a list of dates (rather than a list
of restrictions of dates), the atomic values in the sequence would
be properly labeled with xs:date. So once we fix the algorithm
of obtaining the type name of a subtype the whole example will be
handled properly.

> 
> One thing that caused me some confusion on my first read was the way
> that the typed value of elements is created (Section 4.2). It appears
> that if an element to have a complex type in the schema, then
> dm:typed-value returns an error, unless it's declared with the complex
> type xs:anyType, in which case dm:typed-value returns its string
> value. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, since
> xs:anySimpleType is a subtype of xs:anyType, and for consistency with
> the treatment of well-formed documents, but it might be worth a note
> or a bit of rephrasing.

I'll try to add some clarification to that section, and possibly
point out the reason you mention: for consistency with the treatment
of well-formed documents.

> 
> By the way, I think that the changes that have been made here have
> addressed the issue I raised about whitespace normalization of element
> values (Issue-0073: Whitespace normalization of the string-value of
> elements with simple content).
> 
> 
> There's a small typo in Section 5 Atomic Values. It says:
> 
>  "XML Schema simple types can be derived by list. Values
>   corresponding to such types are represented by a sequence of atomic
>   values whose type is the base type."
> 
> Presumably you mean "whose type is the item type". The base type of a
> list type (or a union type) is xs:anySimpleType.
> 

Thanks. I'll fix the typo.

> 
> The schema from Appendix D isn't valid at the moment, because the
> complex type part-type has an xs:attribute within an xs:sequence. It
> should be:
> 
>   <xs:complexType name="part-type">
>     <xs:sequence>
>       <xs:element name="mfg" type="xs:string"/>
>       <xs:element name="price" type="xs:decimal"/>
>     </xs:sequence>
>     <xs:attribute name="name" type="part-name"/>
>   </xs:complexType>
> 

Right. I'll move the attribute declaration outside sequence.

> Even if it were valid, though, the instance document wouldn't be valid
> against it. The instance document is:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <p:part xmlns:p="http://www.example.com/PartSchema"
>         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
>         xsi:schemaLocation = "http://www.example.com/PartSchema
>                               http://www.example.com/PartSchema"
>         name="NB-401-nutbolt">
>   <p:mfg>Acme</p:mfg>
>   <p:price>10.50</p:price>
> </p:part>
> 
> in which the mfg and price elements are in the
> http://www.example.com/PartSchema namespace. However, these elements
> are declared locally within the schema (in the complex type definition
> above), which means, by default, that they should be in no namespace.
> 
> You should either change the instance document so that the mfg and
> price elements are in no namespace:
> 

Right again! I'll make the change.

> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <p:part xmlns:p="http://www.example.com/PartSchema"
>         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
>         xsi:schemaLocation = "http://www.example.com/PartSchema
>                               http://www.example.com/PartSchema"
>         name="NB-401-nutbolt">
>   <mfg>Acme</mfg>
>   <price>10.50</price>
> </p:part>
> 
> or add an elementFormDefault attribute with the value 'qualified' to
> the xs:schema element in the schema:
> 
> <xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
>            targetNamespace="http://www.example.com/PartSchema"
>            xmlns="http://www.example.com/PartSchema"
>            elementFormDefault="qualified">
>   ...
> </xs:schema>
> 
> 
> I hope these comments are helpful.

Yes! Thank you very much!

> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jeni
> ---
> Jeni Tennison
> http://www.jenitennison.com/
>

Received on Wednesday, 22 May 2002 14:04:48 UTC