ISSUE-36: Mapping between XML and Presentation Syntaxes

ISSUE-36: Mapping between XML and Presentation Syntaxes

http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/track/issues/36

Raised by: Christopher Welty
On product: Technical Design


At F2F7, the WG agreed that the BLD spec will include a human readable
"Presentation Syntax" (PS) and an XML Syntax (XS).  The PS will be used in the
specification of the BLD formal semantics, for presentation of examples, and
other cases where human readability is required.  The XS will be used to
exchange rules between implemented systems (perhaps XS also means exchange syntax?).

The problem with having these two syntaxes is establishing the formal
correspndence (or mapping) between the PS and the XS; the semantics specified
for the PS must correspond in an unambiguous way to documents specified in the XS.

The working group agreed that there are three choices for addressing this mapping:

1) "Abstract" the PS to the point that the mapping to XS is simple and obvious.

2) Use an abstract syntax mechanism to specify the mapping, leaving the PS as
human readable as possible.

3) Use some other mechanism (such as a set of mapping formulae or tables) to
specify a complex mapping between a human-readable PS and the XS.

At F2F7 Day 1, a majority preferred choice #2, however all agreed that this is
still subject to the specific technical approach taken.

Received on Thursday, 27 September 2007 18:05:14 UTC