Re: NEW ISSUE: Schema tweaks

For when Rich's concerns are relevant to an exchange,
Is it not possible to use only the seconds subfield with decimal 
representation to arbitrary range and precision?

Tom Rutt

Rich Salz wrote:

>>Patient: Hey doc, it hurts when I use an xs:duration of 1M1D because it
>>depends on what month it is
>>Doctor: Don't do that!
>>    
>>
>
>Okay, I'll use a duration of one minute and hope it doesn't have
>leap-seconds.  Or hope that I'm not transiting the end of February,
>because then I need to know about leap years.  There's just too
>many special cases.
>
>It's a fundamental problem with xs:duration -- it is only valid in a
>particular timeframe.  You can't say "try xxx later" without knowing
>what *now* is.  Saying "don't do that" tries to ignore the issue.
>
>  
>
>>Sure, an xs:unsignedLong that represents milliseconds *seems* simpler
>>until you get into squirrelly areas
>>like the fact that Java does not have a primitive type for xs:unsignedLong
>>which means you need to
>>manipulate it with java.math.BigDecimal which is not very efficient.
>>    
>>
>
>This brings up a host of replies.  First, this is yet another
>reason to favor unsignedInt.  Second, I don't particularly care about
>Java's problems with integers.  Third, do you care about forcing
>me to now understand a fairly complex XSD datatype now?
>
>xs:duration is on the wrong side of 80/20.  The way wrong side.
>        /r$
>  
>

-- 
----------------------------------------------------
Tom Rutt	email: tom@coastin.com; trutt@us.fujitsu.com
Tel: +1 732 801 5744          Fax: +1 732 774 5133

Received on Wednesday, 2 March 2005 14:03:10 UTC