RE: Unclear of How Schemas are meant to be used

Thank you for the attached correspondence about Issue 20 [1] from the
"Unclear of HOW Schemas are meant to be used within SOAP" item in your
email [2].  This message is to simply confirm that the XML Protocol WG
has decided to resolve Issue 20 with no further action required.

We appreciate your feedback on the XML Protocol specifications. Please
let us know if this response is satisfactory. If not, please respond to
this message, explaining your concerns.

/paulc

[1] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/xmlp-issues.html#x20
[2]
http://discuss.develop.com/archives/wa.exe?A2=ind0008&L=soap&F=&S=&P=132
41

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada 
17 Eleanor Drive, Nepean, Ontario K2E 6A3 
Tel: (613) 225-5445 Fax: (425) 936-7329 
<mailto:pcotton@microsoft.com> 



-----Original Message-----
From: SJ McDowall [mailto:sjm@aptest.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 3:36 PM
To: Paul Cotton
Subject: RE: Unclear of How Schemas are meant to be used



Ah.. Yes, you are correct sir! Feel free to close the "Schema" issue as
"no
action required".

Regards,

SJ McDowall

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Cotton [mailto:pcotton@microsoft.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 2:30 PM
To: SJ McDowall
Subject: RE: Unclear of How Schemas are meant to be used


In reading your explanation of your original comments, I believe you are
actually expressing a concern about the meaning of the XML Schema
schemaLocation attribute [1] which is used by SOAP 1.1.  In affect I
believe your question is not in affect about the SOAP 1.1 spec but about
the meaning of the schemaLocation "hint" as defined by XML Schema.  If
this latter assertion is true then it is important for you to confirm
this since it would permit the XML Protocol WG to close the Issue
related to your original comments with "no action".

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
17 Eleanor Drive, Nepean, Ontario K2E 6A3
Tel: (613) 225-5445 Fax: (425) 936-7329
<mailto:pcotton@microsoft.com>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: SJ McDowall [mailto:sjm@aptest.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 12:31 PM
> To: Paul Cotton
> Subject: RE: Unclear of How Schemas are meant to be used
>
>
>
> Paul,
>
> Ok.. Here is my feedback from my fuzzy long ago comments.. You must
> understand that
> I haven't been keeping up to date on new SOAP developments so
> my comments
> may be
> out of date / out of turn or just totally simply wrong. :-)
>
> Background:
> 	When I first starting working of the Java interface to
> SOAP (apache),
> we had an actual client who specified their SOAP datagrams
> (for lack of a
> better word)
> via a schema. In effect, they had a complex "structure" which
> eventually
> broke down
> into normal "simple" types (string, etc. etc).
>
> However, the XML parser didn't actually DO anything with this scheme.
> Although
> the schema was fully specified within the SOAP envelope (the URI to be
> precise), and
> if it was retrieved was a nice looking DTD thing, the XML parser just
> ignored it.
>
> This prompted my question as to what is the purpose of the schema
> declaration within
> an SOAP envelope. If an XML validating parser can just ignore
> it (and then
> barf
> later on when it sees non-simple type info) it doesn't make
> sense.. at least
> to me.
>
> Does this make any sense? Do XML Parser / SOAP implementations still
> "ignore"
> the schema? I.e. do the actually try to GET it via the URI
> and feed it in?
> before
> parsing the rest of the XML ? Should they? If not, besides
> nice comments,
> what's the
> point of having it? How can "we" send arbitrary complex
> structures, etc. and
> have them
> auto-change if the structure changes?
>
> Personally I think that the schema should NOT be ignored and
> SOMEHOW be
> "read" in.
> Now, I can understand (being in POSIX 1003 committees for
> years) how it
> should not
> be mandated exactly the behavior, but surely SOMETHING needs
> to be done. I
> understand
> security issues (although why would a site send a complex
> SOAP packet and
> not allow
> the DTD to be read in doesn't make a lot of sense) and
> performance issues
> (it would be
> nice to cache the schemas), but if the schema is not the
> stock one then I do
> think it
> reasonable for the schema to be attempted to be read via a
> GET and processed
> ..
>
> If this is totally off the wall, forgive me. :-)
>
> -Steve
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Cotton [mailto:pcotton@microsoft.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 8:13 AM
> To: sjm@aptest.com
> Cc: David Fallside (E-mail)
> Subject: FW: Unclear of How Schemas are meant to be used
>
>
> I sent you the attached message last week and did not receive
> a reply or
> a bounce.  If you do not have time to reply at the current time could
> you simply acknowledge receipt of this message so that I can
> report the
> status of my efforts to contact you to the XML Protocol WG?
>
> Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
> 17 Eleanor Drive, Nepean, Ontario K2E 6A3
> Tel: (613) 225-5445 Fax: (425) 936-7329
> <mailto:pcotton@microsoft.com>
>
>
> >  -----Original Message-----
> > From: 	Paul Cotton
> > Sent:	Wednesday, May 23, 2001 5:25 PM
> > To:	'sjm@APTEST.COM'
> > Subject:	Unclear of How Schemas are meant to be used
> >
> > Steven McDowall
> >
> > I have been asked by the W3C XML Protocol WG to approach
> you for more
> > information about the second point in your message:
> >
> >
> http://discuss.develop.com/archives/wa.exe?A2=ind0008&L=soap&F=&S=&P=1
> > 3241
> >
> > "2) Unclear of HOW Schemas are meant to be used within SOAP. Need
> > clarification and more examples, especially HTTP ones :-)
> > This has been a confusing issue to many people, especially since a
> > large part of the SOAP Spec has examples that imply / use
> schemas for
> > type definitions.. Yet, there isn't any description of how such
> > schemas CAN or MEANT to be used.. Is schemaLocation the method? Etc.
> > If a SOAP body specifies schemaLocation, what should be done?
> > Anything? Use it? :-)"
> >
> > This item is now on the issues list for the XML Protocol
> specification
> > [1] and the WG is trying to deal with these issues in order
> to permit
> > us to publish a new "better" version of the document.
> >
> > When the WG was reviewing your comment at least one WG participant
> > felt that adding some of the material suggested by your
> SOAP feedback
> > would not be a good idea since it would not define
> mandatory behaviour
> > for ALL SOAP implementations.  To help the WG process your feedback
> > could you suggest concrete changes that you would like made
> to the XML
> > Protocol specification [1] to satisfy your own comments?
> >
> > In addition the WG asked me to ask you if you could expand on your
> > original feedback to more completely describe the problems you felt
> > needed clarification.  Could you do this as well?
> >
> > I have sent this message to you privately to permit you to
> answer this
> > request in a private fashion.  But if you want please copy your
> > response to the the public XML Protocol email list at
> > mailto:xml-dist-app@w3.org.
> >
> > /paulc
> >
> > [1] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/1/04/17/xmlp-soap-01
> > Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
> > 17 Eleanor Drive, Nepean, Ontario K2E 6A3
> > Tel: (613) 225-5445 Fax: (425) 936-7329
> > <mailto:pcotton@microsoft.com>
> >
> >
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 6 June 2001 16:02:51 UTC