[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] [XUS] URN applied to Document Management Systems
A sane document management approach: I manage my documents with a key, composed with some fields of my XML documents. When I have to refer to documents, I use a canonical form of the key so that I can use classical links such as <a href="..."> This canonical form is naturally an URN The problem when using URN, is that the sub-scheme must be registered, otherwise collisions may happen if somebody else decide to use the same name, exactly like with XML elements; a solution is to use a namespace URI instead, because namespace URIs can stand for universal IDs. People at W3C already invent the thing, why not extending it for other purpose ? The XML URN Scheme (XUS) is based on this : the sub-scheme is indirectly a universal ID <a href="urn:xus:..." xmlns:xus="http://www.inria.fr/xml/xus/xml-urn-scheme"> This ID just denotes that sub-sub-schemes are using xmlns declarations for the next scheme (called the delegate scheme); then a sub-sub-scheme can universally (thanks to a namespace URI, not a collisionnable string) rules the scheme specific part remaining. <a href="urn:xus:my:fields" xmlns:xus="http://www.inria.fr/xml/xus/xml-urn-scheme" xmlns:my="http://www.foo.org/my-scheme"> A XUS scheme for document management: The scheme for the XUS application defined below is http://www.inria.fr/xml/xus/dms-xus-scheme Here are some expectations that Document Management Systems may cover: -documents are stored in a database -a set of related documents are grouped in collections often structured hierarchically -a document is composite, that is to say composed of several "files": texts and resources such as images, videos, etc -a document is managed in "variants", such as the language, the version, or both -a document may have meta-datas, views (for example a PDF view) -etc Considering a document, what is needed is an identifier that indicates which database is storing it and which field structure it follows. Once again, let's use a namespace URI. For example, http://www.foo.org/my-dms denotes that the fields used are a reference and a version (the variant); notice that this ns URI doesn't indicate where is located the database; it's just an ID that indicates at most the owner of the database, and that applications may use. The DXS (DMS XUS Scheme) components are: -the collection path -the reference -the version -the optional resource path -the optional fragment Formally, the syntax of a DMS XUS URI is the following : urn:xus-prefix:dms-prefix:(dms-base[:/dms-collection-path]):(dms-field[:dms-field])[:resource-path][#fragment] where square brackets [...] delineate optional components and the characters :, (, ) and # stand for themselves and * urn is a string that stands for itslef and denotes that the URI is an URN * xus-prefix is a prefix bound to the XUS namespace URI : http://www.inria.fr/xml/xus/xml-urn-scheme. The usual prefix is xus, but any other prefix bound to the XUS namespace URI suits. * dms-prefix is a prefix bound to the DMS XUS namespace URI : http://www.inria.fr/xml/xus/dms-xus-scheme. The usual prefix is dxs, but any other prefix bound to the DMS XUS namespace URI suits. * dms-base the prefix of the DMS XUS part scheme bound to a namespace URI. * dms-collection-path is a path to the collection in the base ; each element of the path is a qualified name, and is separated with the slash / character * dms-field is a field that identifies a document * resource-path is a path to a resource of the document * fragment is an XPointer that delineates a fragment of the resource Example: <a href="urn:xus:dxs:(my-base:/family):(myWife:2.0)" xmlns:xus="http://www.inria.fr/xml/xus/xml-urn-scheme" xmlns:dxs="http://www.inria.fr/xml/xus/dms-xus-scheme" xmlns:my-base="http://www.foo.org/my-dms"> Other valid URNs: urn:xus:dxs:(my-base:/family):(myWife:2.0)#vitalStatistics urn:xus:dxs:(my-base:/family):(myWife:2.0):img/photo.jpg urn:xus:dxs:(my-base:/family):(myWife) The last URN shows the document referenced without its variant; the behaviour may vary according to the application, that may rely on the semantic of the attribute used or its host element; for example, it may draw up the list of all versions of the document, or build a link to the last document, or the last that has been validated if this feature is relevant, or any other useful thing if other variants are used. What to do with URNs ? URNs are very efficient because even when things are moving on the Web, URNs don't change; URNs are the best support for document identification. But if URNs are found in source documents, they must be processed in at least 2 different ways : -a publishing application must know how to retrieve the resources stored in a database it can access -it must also know how to convert URN to URL so that links are understandable by your favorite browser. Problems arise with sharability: when 2 companies are exchanging documents, they may not share the bases, the schemes, and the publishing processes; in this case, the exchanging process should be done after URN conversion. Testimonial: I experienced myself XUS with DXS in a very simple manner : my DMS is just a file system where a simple mapping allows to retrieve the documents; similarly, a target web view maps the documents to traditional URLs I also plan to move my XML documents to an XML native database with fiew DMS features -- Cordialement, /// (. .) -----ooO--(_)--Ooo----- | Philippe Poulard | -----------------------
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