[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Schema Datatype Limitations - Data Architecture Insights
The more I work with XML Schemas the more I am discouraged by how complicated it can be to work with the datatypes in terms of validation. Case 1. Monetary amounts. Our source systems allow amounts to be represented in a number of ways. 1,000.00 and 1000.00 are the same thing and can be resolved by the receiving RDBMS. This seems ridiculously complicated to validate with XML Schemas as a pattern would need to be written that accounts for the possible comma that can occur every three digits out. Does anyone have such a pattern written already? Case 2. Dates. Dates are also too complicated to work with in many cases with XML Schemas. I won't get into this one but I'm sure many of you have seen the issues surrounding custom dates (which is a big issue since dates can be described in so many patterns). Perhaps rather than complaining about the limitations of XML Schema and its datatypes it is worth taking a more constructive approach. As we work in our organizations to implement XML solutions and we come across dilemmas like the ones above this allows us to take a second (or third in many cases) look at the source and receiving systems that interact in our messaging environment. One must ask questions like "Why is there more than one standard date format.....why does the receiving system have to translate dates so that it can receive them in different formats from multiple systems". "Why are dollar amounts sent from different systems in different formats?" Perhaps XML is just what the doctor prescribed in terms of revisiting your companies data architecture and gaining some ammunition for revisiting some efforts with a more common set of data principles in hand. Would anyone like to share their insights on XML's impact on Data Architecture efforts? Any success stories (or nightmares) related to data architecture and XML?
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