Another multi-field key question

• From: Jim Stanley <JimS@Media-Services.Com>
• Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 15:09:21 -0800
• To: <xmlschema-dev@w3.org>
• Message-Id: <s1bdb0bf.076@mail.media-services.com>

Just when I think I understand all this key/keyref stuff, another
conundrum arises:

I have "categories" under my root, each with one or more "property
definitions" consisting of name-value pairs.   Several of my categories
have duplicate property definitions, something like below:

<root>
  <category>
    <name>Foo</name>
    <propDef>
        <name>Color</name>
        <type>integer</type>
    </propDef>
    <propDef>
      <name>Flavor</name>
      <type>String</type>
    </propDef>
  <category>
  <category>
    <name>Bar</name>
    <propDef>
      <name>Color</name>
      <type>integer</type>
    </propDef
    <propDef>
      <name>Odor</name>
      <type>String</type>
    </propDef>
  </category>
</root>

If I define a primary key as follows:

<xs:key name="catElem.PK">
  <xs:selector xpath="category/propDef"/>
  <xs:field xpath="name"/>
</xs:key>

XMLSpy tells me that the duplicate value "Color" has been already
matched by the identity constraint.  If I configure it like so:

<xs:key name="catElem.PK">
  <xs:selector xpath="category"/>
  <xs:field xpath="propDef/name"/>
</xs:key>

it tells me that the field "propDef/name" matches twice within the
scope of element 'category'.

I don't get this.  I thought after the last go-round that using just
'category' as the field selector created an automatic unique constraint
per category.  I need to make sure that the combination of category name
*plus* propDef/name (Foo + Color) is unique.  Can someone shed some
light (again?)

Thanks

Jim Stanley
Media Services, Inc.



    

Received on Monday, 13 December 2004 23:10:25 UTC