Re: XForms Basic and Schema Validation

Hi Henry,

I didn't find the name Datatype validation to be misleading.  We have 
datatypes, which
can be expressed by simpleTypes, and that rule expresses whether or not a 
string matches 
the datatype. 

In XForms 1.0, the type MIP says it "associates" a datatype with a node. 
Could've said
simpleType, could've said "attached" or something like that, but the 
author of the section
was quite clear enough in meaning, I believe.  The author of XForms type 
MIP goes on to 
say that the legal attribute value is a reference to a name that 
"represents" a datatype.

Some have been arguing, unreasonably so in my view, that the type MIP 
supports the
referencing of complex types.  I have been trying to make some sense out 
of that, and
the only thing that comes up really is that one has to really twist and 
turn to interpret
"associate" and "represent" as an indirection to complex types that have 
simple content.

But the type MIP author was being very clear that type was about character 
data validation.
Saying simple type might have helped in hindsight, but it's hard to fault 
that author (not me,
by the way) for using the proper term, normatively referenced and 
normatively defined.

Bottom line to me is that if one wants to associate a complex type with a 
node of XForms
instance data, then one should be using an actual schema as the type MIP 
was designed
to be a lightweight syntax sugar for the main XForms 1.0 use case of 
validating direct
user character data input.

Best regards,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Product Architect/Research Scientist
Co-Chair, W3C XForms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com  http://www.ibm.com/software/

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer





ht@inf.ed.ac.uk (Henry S. Thompson) 
Sent by: www-forms-request@w3.org
05/10/2006 01:34 AM

To
John Boyer/CanWest/IBM@IBMCA
cc
David Landwehr <david.landwehr@solidapp.com>, "Mark Birbeck" 
<mark.birbeck@x-port.net>, www-forms@w3.org, www-forms-request@w3.org
Subject
Re: XForms Basic and Schema Validation







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Seems to me you'd be much better off, as I understand what you're
doing, to talk about simple type definitions, not datatypes.  I take
it from [1] that an XForm MIP uses a QName to refer to
. . . something.  That something appears to be user-definable, in a
(W3C XML Schema)schema.  Such things are simple type definitions,
referred to by name (or, if you must, although I think it's going to
cause _much_ more confusion and trouble than it's worth, by naming a
complex type definition with simple content, whose {content type} is
then the referent.  In your example [1], what is gained by referring
to my:internationalPrice instead of xs:decimal?).

Talking about simple type definitions will simplify your prose
interface to the XML Schema specs.  Note for example that the
(misleadingly named, sorry) Validation Rule: Datatype Valid [2] is a
rule relating a simple type definition (not a datatype) to a string.

ht

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-forms/2006May/0075.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema11-2/#cvc-datatype-valid
- -- 
 Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of 
Edinburgh
                     Half-time member of W3C Team
    2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
            Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                   URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
[mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged 
spam]
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