XML Schema Pt 1. Ed. 2 section 3.14.6 - specification wording error (missing/unclear antecedent)

Regarding _XML_Schema_Part_1:_Structures_Second_Edition at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-1-20041028/:

In section 3.14.6, the "Schema Component Constraint: Type Derivation OK
(Simple)" rule at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-1-20041028/#cos-st-derived-ok
says:

   Schema Component Constraint: Type Derivation OK (Simple)
     For a simple type definition ... to be validly derived from a type
     definition ... given a subset ... one of the following must be true:
     1 They are the same type definition.
     2 All of the following must be true:
       2.1 'restriction' is not in the subset, or in the {final} of its own
           {base type definition} ...
       ...

The wording makes it quite unclear which component's {final} property is
being referred to.


In particular, the word "its" has no (clear) antecedent.

(Grammatically, the closest candidates are "'restriction'" (the subject
of the sentence) and "the subset" (the most recent noun in the previous
phrase), but clearly neither of those interpretations is valid.

Going to the previous sentence:  The plural "they" does not seem to be
the intended antecedent of the singular "its," and "the same definition"
can't be because it's a mutually exclusive case to start with.

The first sentence has three main noun phrases, so none is clearly the
antecendent.)


It seems that the intended reference is "the simple type definition."

Since that simple type definition has already been named D, clause 2.1
should probably read:

       2.1 'restriction' is not in the subset, or in the {final} of
           D's {base type definition} ...



Daniel Barclay

Received on Thursday, 12 October 2006 18:02:43 UTC