Re: What is the meaning of the import statement?

Hi Henry,

thank you very much for the reply. I cannot really say I am completelly
happy :-), but at least now I understand better the issue and the approach
of the developers of XMLSchema. It seems that I can achieve what I want to
do, just with a bit more work which is always good enough.

Cheers

Milan
=========================================
Milan Trninic
Senior Software Engineer
tel: 1 604 484-2764, 484-2750
mtrninic@galdosinc.com
Galdos Systems IncT http://www.galdosinc.com
=========================================
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  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Henry S. Thompson
  To: Milan Trninic
  Cc: www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org ; xmlschema-dev@w3.org
  Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 02:04
  Subject: Re: What is the meaning of the import statement?



  "Milan Trninic" <mtrninic@galdosinc.com> writes:

  > I've been pondering on one issue related to the multiple <import>s of
the
  > same namespace. Here is the story in short:
  >
  > I wanted to modularize the definitions in our namespace and to import
them
  > selectivelly from the application schemas. (Application meaning the
schemas
  > built on top of our base schemas). And I've figured I can't since the
  > specification allows processors to ignore all but the first <import>
  > statement of the particular namespace.
  >
  > On the other hand, the specification allows processors to take into the
  > account all of the imports as well. And this is what some of the
processors
  > do. This incostistent behaviour is the first problem.
  >
  > But ok, if applications always use only one <import> statement, that
  > incostistency goes away.

  Right, that's the sensible defensive strategy.

  > Now, this obviously means that we are importing the namespace (with all
of
  > its definitions), not the definitions themselves. But then, why do we
need
  > two attributes there? Why schemaLocation? I mean if the namespace is
always
  > bound to only one schema location, that attribute is completelly
redundand.

  Sorry, how does it get bound to _any_ schema location?  Answer -- the
  spec. provides a range of options for processor and/or user to
  employ/specify, everything from "nothing, because I've got that one
  built in" through "try derefing the NS name" to "use schemaLoc".

  > The existence of that attribute and the fact that it is not required
that
  > anything actually exists at the end of the namespace URI produces the
  > conclusion that <import> does not really import the namespace (with all
of
  > its definitions), but imports specific definitions from it.
  >
  > Now which one is correct?

  Neither.  The fundamental purpose of <xs:import namespace='nsName'> is
  to allow references (e.g. ref=, base=) to names qualified by nsName.

  > Even with this issue resolved, the fact that you cannot modularize the
  > schemas is a real problem. Acheving scalability is affected. Building
  > mutually dependant, "networked" or hierarchical schema sets from
different
  > domain and for different purposes is significantly affected. I mean this
  > almost means that I have to have different namespace for each of my
  > definitions.

  There is a tradeoff here, but the common approach to this is to go
  ahead and modularise, and use <xs:include> to manage the
  modularisation (that's what _it_ is meant for).  In the case of
  importing a modularly-defined schema, that does mean you have to
  create a stub schema document which consists entirely of
  <xs:include>s, which you then point to from the schemaLoc of your
  import.

  Hope this helps.

  ht
  --
    Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of
Edinburgh
            W3C Fellow 1999--2002, part-time member of W3C Team
       2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
      Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
   [mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged
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