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Re: Identifying the subcommunity which generated an instancedo

• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:05:16 -0400

I'm sorry - but what's the actual problem here?

I agree that context is good to have, but I'm not sure that these 
examples even really demand it, so long as you write vaguely sane 
processing code.

I recognize that there's lot of incredibly brittle code out there which 
can't cope with the difference between the instances, but that seems to 
me like a vastly bigger problem than something to address by adding a PI 
about subcommunities.

Unless maybe it's a very subtle way of breaking that problem slowly to 
developers.

Strange.

Thanks,
Simon St.Laurent
Mostly retired XML codger
http://simonstl.com/

Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> Last week we discussed approaches to creating a single XML vocabulary
> that is used by diverse subcommunities[1].
> 
> The example we considered was a book community that is comprised of
> three subcommunities:
> 
> - book sellers
> - book distributors
> - book printers
> 
> 
> Consider this XML instance document:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <Book xmlns="http://www.books.org">
>     <Title>The Wisdom of Crowds</Title>
>     <Author>James Surowiecki</Author>
>     <Date>2005</Date>
>     <ISBN>0-385-72170-6</ISBN>
>     <Publisher>Anchor Books</Publisher>
> </Book>
> 
> It is generated from someone in the book seller subcommunity.
> 
> 
> Now consider this XML instance document:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <Book xmlns="http://www.books.org">
>     <Title>The Wisdom of Crowds</Title>
>     <Author>James Surowiecki</Author>
>     <Size>5" x 8"</Size>
>     <Weight>15oz</Weight>
>     <MailingCost>$3.90</MailingCost>
> </Book>
> 
> It is generated from someone in the book distributor subcommunity.
> 
> 
> Notice that there is no indication within the instance documents of the
> subcommunity which generated it.
> 
> 
> ASSERTION
> 
> Knowing which subcommunity generated an instance document is important
> for knowing how to process the instance document.
> 
> 
> APPROACHES FOR IDENTIFYING WHICH SUBCOMMUNITY GENERATED AN INSTANCE
> DOCUMENT
> 
> 1. Out-of-band: Provide the data about which subcommunity generated the
> instance document out-of-band.
> 
> 2. Embedded data: Provide the data about which subcommunity generated
> the instance document within the instance document.  For example, here
> I added a "role" attribute to provide the data:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <Book xmlns="http://www.books.org"
>       role="book seller">
>     <Title>The Wisdom of Crowds</Title>
>     <Author>James Surowiecki</Author>
>     <Date>2005</Date>
>     <ISBN>0-385-72170-6</ISBN>
>     <Publisher>Anchor Books</Publisher>
> </Book>
> 
> 3. Processing Instruction: Provide the data about which subcommunity
> generated the instance document using a processing instruction.  For
> example, here I added a "subcommunity processing instruction" to
> provide the data:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <?subcommunity role="book seller"?>
> <Book xmlns="http://www.books.org">
>     <Title>The Wisdom of Crowds</Title>
>     <Author>James Surowiecki</Author>
>     <Date>2005</Date>
>     <ISBN>0-385-72170-6</ISBN>
>     <Publisher>Anchor Books</Publisher>
> </Book>
> 
> 
> QUESTIONS
> 
> Are there other approaches than the three listed above?
> 
> Which approach do you recommend?
> 
> /Roger
> 
> [1]
> http://www.xfront.com/single-xml-vocabulary-customized-for-sub-communit
> ies/
> 
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• References:
  • Identifying the subcommunity which generated an instance document?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>