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RE: Basic Information on XML

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Basic Information on XML
• From: Louise Lister <Louise.Lister@t...>
• Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:12:07 +0100

Dear all,

I am totally new to all of this and I am a commercial product manager as opposed to a 'techie'.

We are looking at XML as an option for delivering invoice information currently and so whilst totally lost as to your conversations due to my total ignorance, would be grateful if someone could point me in the direction to find out about :

* xml and its definition (no jargon, no sweeping statements)
* example formats
* architectural requirements e.g over and above bill formatting to print bureau etc
* benefits over and above EDIFACT  ( also differences)

Many Thanks
Louise

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@m...]
Sent: 23 July 2003 12:58
To: Roger L. Costello
Cc: xml-dev@l...
Subject: Re: Re: An approach to describing the relationships
between units-of-measure

Roger L. Costello scripsit:

> Recap: Don't state the relationship between different UOMs! 
> Instead, state the relationship between a UOM and its
> reference standard.

Yes, indeed.

> canonical(mile) = $value * 1620

The exact conversion is 0.0254 (meters per inch) * 12 (inches per foot) *
5280 (feet per mile), or 1609.344 meters per mile.  You want to use
rational decimal arithmetic rather than binary floating point when
doing this sort of work.

>    <River id="Yangtze">
>         <length>
>             <meter>6340680</meter>
>         </length>
>    </River>

Rather <meter>6298972.416</meter>

> Question: what is the canonical form of compound UOMs, such as:
>      - m**2        (meters squared)
>      - m/sec        (meters per second)
>      - m/sec**2  (meters per second squared)

Such a form can always be reduced to a fraction, with a list of numerator
units and denominator units.  If we sort the units in alphabetical order,
then we get a canonical form for it.  For example, the canonical
form of volts is "kilogram meter meter / ampere second second second".
Exactly how to represent this in XML I leave up to you.

--
XQuery Blueberry DOM                            John Cowan
Entity parser dot-com                           jcowan@r...
    Abstract schemata                           http://www.reutershealth.com
    XPointer errata                             http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Infoset Unicode BOM                                 --Richard Tobin

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