RE: URIs for terms: motivation [was: Requirements Document]

From: "Smith, Michael K" <michael.smith@eds.com>
Subject: RE: URIs for terms: motivation [was: Requirements Document]
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:21:40 -0600

> > So, in particular, I suggest that the WG mandate the Chair to send a
> strong
> > message to the *POWERS*THAT*BE* saying that we desperately need a way of
> > accessing XML Schema document definitions.
> > ...
> > peter
> 
> XPATH provides a mechanism to reference, using an expression, every element
> of a schema.   

Then maybe we should use XPATH expressions instead of URIs plus fragments.

> IF you are asking for a reasonable way to provide unique ATOMIC names for
> all elements of an XML Schema, I don't think that is plausible.  Schemas
> include repeating groups, so at a minimum you need an indexing construct.
> And in order to be modular they need to be constructed out of common
> building blocks.  You simply have to be able to repeat <CITY> as part of
> <SHIPPING-ADDRESS> and <BILLING-ADDRESS>.
> 
> - Mike

Well, I personally would probably be happy being able to reference the
top-level definitions in an XML Schema document.  For example, I would like
to be able to reference the PurchaseOrderType in the example in XML Schema
part 0.  

It would be nice, of course, to be able to reference any part of an XML
Schema document or even of an XML document!  In fact it would be nice to be
able to reference anything we wanted to by using a URI-plus-fragment or
XPATH expression.  Unfortunately that just ain't possible---there are not
enough URI-plus-framents or even XPATH expressions to reference everything.

peter

Received on Friday, 15 February 2002 12:39:46 UTC