UBL Naming and Design Rules Subcommittee Report

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UBL Namingand Design Rules Subcommittee Report

• Eve Maler, Sun Microsystems
• OASIS UBL NDR SC chair
• 3 June 2002 beginning of F2F 4

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What does the NDR SC do, again?

• Charter
• Recommend to the TC rules and guidelines for
  normative-form schema design, instance design,
  and markup naming, and write and maintain
  documentation of these rules and guidelines
• We individually champion issues by writing
  position papers
• The NDR document holds actual recommendations
  approved by the SC
• They are mostly put into practice in the script
  that produces XSD from the LC SC spreadsheet

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Current NDR SC members

• Bill Burcham
• Mavis Cournane (editor)
• Mark Crawford(vice-chair)
• Fabrice Desré
• Matt Gertner
• Arofan Gregory
• Jessica Glace

• Eduardo Gutentag
• John Larmouth
• Eve Maler (chair)
• Sue Probert
• Lisa Seaburg
• Gunther Stuhec
• Paul Thorpe

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Status snapshot 2,31 May 02

• Available on the NDR portal or from me this week
• NDR document V12 holds quite a few (but not all)
  of our recommendations so far
• All naming
• Basic structure of element and type declarations
• How to handle code lists
• More position papers to review and savor
• UBL TCs feedback on CCTS V1.8
• Modnamver V04 (freshened up not quite up to
  date)
• Elements vs. attributes V03 (same revision as
  last time)
• Facets V01 (new)
• Local vs. global V01 (new)
• Code lists V09 (updated final)

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CCTS feedback news

• This was a whole-TC activity paper is included
  in the snapshot to help make sense of some of our
  naming rules
• Very brief summary of recommendations
• Clarify the notion of Property
• Unify RTs and CCTs and call them Basic Core
  Components
• Treat Aggregate Core Components as high-level
  RTs, instead of having just Details

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Modnamver news

• We reviewed LC SC distribution 0.64 and
• Agreed that there should be a separate module for
  the basic core components (aka CCTs)
• Decided that one module per top-level message
  element was too heavy related message elements
  will be grouped together
• We are seriously considering using URNs for UBL
  namespace names
• E.g., urnoasisnamestcubl vs.
  http//www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/

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Element vs. attribute news

• We formally agreed that
• Attributes should be reserved for supplementary
  components of basic CCs (aka CCTs)
• Empty elements should not be used
• Global attributes should be used only for common
  properties that apply to all UBL objects and have
  identical interpretation in all cases
• Decisions are not entirely reflected in the
  position paper, but are in the NDR document

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Facet news

• We agreed to take advantage of setting facets
  on simple types (e.g., maximum string lengths,
  number ranges)
• Thus, basic CCs (aka CCTs) are created with two
  constructs
• A simple datatype for the contents of the element
  (the content component)
• A complex datatype that sets up the elements
  attributes (supplementary components)

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Local vs. global news

• A longstanding recommendation has been to use XSD
  local unqualified elements for all but the
  top-level message element
• E.g., ltublOrdergtltBuyergtlt/Buyergtlt/ublOrdergt
• We are reconsidering this (but we may reconfirm
  our original recommendation)
• At issue are the ease of
• Processing elements, e.g., with XSLT/XPath
• Reusing and customizing UBL components

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Code list news

• We evaluated six alternatives against
• Semantic clarity, interoperability, external
  maintenance, validatability, context rules
  friendliness, upgradability, readability
• The multiple namespaced types method won
  (beating the old QName method by a lot)
• We hope to encourage external code list agencies
  to create XSD modules that declare datatypes for
  each of their code lists
• We will bind UBL elements to these types

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NDR SC agenda notes

• Contrary to the printed brochure, we are planning
  to have NDR sessions in the afternoons
• Context Methodology SC work will take place in
  the mornings
• We will refine the agenda quite a bit later this
  afternoon
• And may tweak this further

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On the docket for F2F 4

• Local vs. global review
• More major modnamver decisions
• Use of wildcards for open content models
• Joint session with the LC SC to discuss and
  improve XML-specific aspects of design
• Joint session with the X12 design rules ctte
• More active coordination with Tools and
  Techniques SC
• Reviewing and adding to guiding principles

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Please visit the NDR portal

• It always summarizes our status and provides
  links to all papers, use cases, and additional
  resources
• It is updated approximately weekly
• And please review snapshot 2!
• http//www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/ndrsc/

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Thanks!Questions?

• Eve Maler, eve.maler_at_sun.com
• http//www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/ndrsc/