[Bug 7695] New: Conformance

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7695

           Summary: Conformance
           Product: XML Schema
           Version: 1.1 only
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows NT
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: Structures: XSD Part 1
        AssignedTo: David_E3@VERIFONE.com
        ReportedBy: mike@saxonica.com
         QAContact: www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org
                CC: cmsmcq@blackmesatech.com


The CR document says in its Conformance Section (2.4): "The Working Group
expects to revise this discussion of conformance in future."

In order to exit from CR we need (a) to demonstrate that we have tests aligned
to the features that are mandated for conformance, and (b) that there are
products that implement these features.

At present (a) it is possible for a non-conformant implementation to pass all
our tests (because we do not test the construction of a PSVI) and (b) it is
possible for a conformant implementation to pass no tests (because our tests
require that the processor be "schema document aware").

Furthermore, experience with XSD 1.0 suggests that products that perform
validation without generating a PSVI have proved successful and interoperable
in the market, and it is therefore shooting ourselves in the foot not to
recognize such products as being at some level conformant with our
specification.

I propose that we identify three basic units of conformance:

(a) A .schema document processor. constructs a schema from a set of schema
documents. Such processors must, when processing schema documents, completely
and correctly implement (or enforce) all ·Schema Representation Constraints· in
this specification, and must adhere exactly to the specifications in Schema
Component Details (§3)  for mapping the contents of such documents to ·schema
components· for use in ·validation· and ·assessment·.

(b) An .instance validator. determines the schema-validity of an instance,
specifically, it is able to determine whether an element information item
satisfies the constraints embodied in an XSD schema;

(c) An .instance assessor. synthesizes the overall validation outcome for an
instance. Specifically, it is able to process an element information item by
combining local schema-validity with the results of schema-validity assessments
of its descendants, if any, and adding appropriate augmentations to the infoset
to record this outcome.

Products may claim conformance with any or all of these three units. The
published test suite may be used to substantiate a conformance claim for a
product that claims conformance with (a) and (b).


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Received on Tuesday, 22 September 2009 07:44:57 UTC