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Re: Friendly names in XML Schema best practice?

• To: Jeff Rafter <jeffrafter@d...>
• Subject: Re: Friendly names in XML Schema best practice?
• From: "Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@b...>
• Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 11:09:46 -0400
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• Organization: Booz Allen Hamilton
• References: <3F754287.8020604@o...> <01c901c384ff$45c6a8c0$6401a8c0@capernaum>

Jeff,

Addressing the "friendly" names portion of your question: I always use
the ISO/IEC 11179 standard [1] for XML element naming in the schemas I
develop in the U.S. federal government space. 11179 pre-dates XML, its
focus being data elements; however, the concepts are very applicable to
XML elements. In summary, Part 5 ("Naming and Identification Principles
for Data Elements") of ISO/IEC 11179 uses a multi-part naming convention
for data element names.

DATA ELEMENT NAME PARTS:

The primary parts are:

- Object Class : Represents an activity or object in a context.  It
essentially answers the question "What is this data element about?"

* Examples: Organization, Address, Project

- Property Term : Further distinguishes the data element from other data
elements of the same Object Class. 

* Examples: Name, City, Start (may seem nebulous - please read on)

- Representation Term: Describes the representation format of a data
element.

* Examples: Text, Date, Code, Amount

COMPLETE DATA ELEMENT NAMES:

Joining these example data element names in the order given yields the
following complete data element names:

- OrganizationNameText (the "Text" term is typically dropped in schemas)
- AddressCityText
- ProjectStartDate

QUALIFIERS:

There will be occassions in which these 3 parts are not sufficient -
that's where Qualifiers come in. Qualifiers can be added in front of an
Object Class, a Property Term, or both - for example:

- OfficeAddressCityText ("Office" is a Qualifier for the "Address"
Object Class)

* This could be done to differentiate this data element from one named
HomeAddressCityText;

- OrganizationShortNameText ("Short" is a Qualifier for the "Name"
Representation Term)

* This could be done to differentiate this data element from one named
OrganizationLongNameText;

- InternalProjectProposedStartDate ("Internal" is a Qualifier for the
"Project" Object Class, "Proposed" is a Qualifier for the "Start"
Representation Term)

* This could be done to differentiate this data element from one named
ExternalProjectApprovedStartDate, or ExternalProjectProposedStartDate;

NAMING PROCESS:

The process I usually use when creating data element names is:

(1) Begin with the 2 "outer" parts (Object Class and Represention Term)

(2) Determine what Property Term would be most appropriate

(3) Ask yourself if the data element name is clear/unique enough for
your purposes (i.e. is there already a data element with that name)

(4) If so, apply Qualifier terms

IN CLOSING:

This approach is used throughout the U.S. federal government, as well as
by emerging XML vocabularies such as OASIS UBL [1].

Kind Regards,
Joe Chiusano
Booz | Allen | Hamilton

[1] http://metadata-stds.org/11179
[2] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ubl

Jeff Rafter wrote:
> 
> I was curious if anyone had experience decorating XML Schemas (or any other
> schemas for that matter) with "friendly" names. That way, when importing
> schemas into editors for non XML users they are presented with something
> even more understandable. Additionally, if this has been done, has anyone
> seen it done in combination with xml:lang to specify language specific
> identifiers. I would imagine that it would go inside of <appInfo> inside
> something like <friendlyName xml:lang="en-US">.
> 
> To add even more to this question, has anyone seen the use of language
> identifiers within the documentation element?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jeff Rafter
> 
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org:Booz | Allen | Hamilton;IT Digital Strategies Team
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