[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Are people really using Identity constraints specified in

• To: "Cox, Bruce" <Bruce.Cox@U...>,"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>,"Roger L. Costello" <costello@m...>, <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Are people really using Identity constraints specified in XML schema?
• From: "Hunsberger, Peter" <Peter.Hunsberger@S...>
• Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 10:12:57 -0500
• Thread-index: AcSEXcDytyP3KlPGQBa5LebiHZYilwACaQZAAAEYzUA=
• Thread-topic: Are people really using Identity constraints specified in XML schema?

Cox, Bruce <Bruce.Cox@U...> asks:

> Are business rules semantics?  I take that question to mean 
> that some business rules can be fully automated since they 
> are about properties of data that succumb to, for example, 
> XML Schema data typing, while others are more problematic and 
> may require methods not easily automated.  In the case of 
> patent document numbers, the goal would be to "ensure shared 
> data is recognized" and only then processed for the current purpose. 
> 
> I certainly appreciate the benefit of using DTDs with their 
> lack of content validation.  Without that characteristic, it 
> is unlikely that the patent offices of the world would have 
> agreed on a common vocabulary for patent applications and 
> publications.  Now that we are on the verge of exchanging 
> instances internationally, that characteristic may bite us by 
> impairing interoperability due to significant variances 
> between the start and end tags for any given element.
> 
> Document numbers are a special case, in that they are 
> critical to establishing the relationship among patents filed 
> and granted in different countries.  Accuracy is sufficiently 
> important to be spending millions of USD a year to correct 
> bad numbers provided by applicants or other offices.  In this 
> one case, I hope there is some way to express the validation 
> rules independently of custom code so that we can describe 
> the rules to each other unambiguously and implement them consistently.
> 
> With XML Schema data typing, followed by Schematron, what 
> would come next to cover the residue?  

It's not clear to me that there is any residue: if you're willing to use
XSLT 2 and allow XSLT extensions you get regex and escape to Java/.NET
or whatever.  Combine that with the document() function and you can do
cross document validation as well.  What's missing? Perhaps a standard
for combining validation rules into a hierarchy (ala CAM?), or some kind
of generalized Ontological approach?

> I don't think anything 
> to do with document numbers can't be automatically validated.
> 

• Prev by Date: Contexts, Rules and Scalable Schemas (WAS RE: Are people really using Identity constraints specified in XML schema?)
• Next by Date: xslt transform
• Previous by thread: RE: Are people really using Identity constraints specified in XML schema?
• Next by thread: RE: Are people really using Identity constraints specified in XML schema?
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread