xml-dev - Schema for Object-oriented XML (SOX)

[Murray Maloney <murray@muzmo.com>]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am pleased to inform you that the W3C has acknowledged
a submission entitled "Schema for Object-oriented XML (SOX)"
which can be found at http://www.w3.org/Submission/1998/15/

The complete list of documents that are relevant to the
SOX submission are listed here for you convenience:

1) Schema for Object-oriented XML (SOX) Specification 
	http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/
2) Core XML DTD for SOX  
	http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/schema.dtd
3) HTML Text DTD  
	http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/htmltext.ent
4) Core schema for SOX  
	http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/schema.sox
5) HTML Text schema module  
	http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/htmltext.mod
6) Typedefs schema module  
	http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/typedefs.mod

Abstract 

Automated processing of business documents in large-scale 
electronic commerce environments requires rigorous definition 
of the document structure, content and semantics to enable 
efficient software development processes for distributed applications. 
XML offers the Document Type Definition (DTD) as a formalism for 
defining the syntax and structure of XML documents. However, experience 
has shown that XML DTDs are not sufficient to specify content or semantics. 
Moreover, the fact that XML DTD syntax is incompatible with XML document 
syntax increases the complexity of supporting interoperation among 
heterogenous applications. Therefore, a schema facility is required to 
enable XML validation and higher levels of automated content checking by 
facilitating software mapping of XML data structures, supporting the 
generation of common application components, and enabling reuse at the 
document design and the application programming levels. 

This submission proposes a schema facility, "Schema for Object-oriented 
XML (SOX)", for defining the structure, content and semantics of XML 
documents to enable XML validation and higher levels of automated 
content checking. XML Schema provides an alternative to XML DTDs for 
modeling markup relationships to enable more efficient software 
development processes for distributed applications. SOX also provides 
basic intrinsic datatypes, an extensible datatyping mechanism, 
content model and attribute interface inheritance, a powerful namespace 
mechanism, and embedded documentation. As compared to XML DTDs, SOX 
dramatically decreases the complexity of supporting interoperation among 
heterogenous applications by facilitating software mapping of XML data structures, expressing domain abstractions and common relationships 
directly and explicitly, enabling reuse at the document design and the 
application programming levels, and supporting the generation of common 
application components 

SOX documents can be operated on by a SOX processor to produce many 
different types of output targets. Transformation of SOX documents 
will yield XML DTDs and object-oriented language classes to facilitate 
the development of intelligent applications, such as those needed to 
perform electronic commerce, for example. Other output targets of SOX 
include documentation derived from the documentation-based elements in 
SOX itself, and user interface components. Further output targets are 
yet to be defined, but the inherent flexibility of SOX allows for many 
other options. 

The SOX proposal is informed by the XML 1.0 specification as well as 
the XML-Data submission, the Document Content Description submission 
and the EXPRESS language reference manual (ISO 10303-11). A SOX document, 
or schema, is a valid XML document instance according to the SOX DTD, 
that represents a complete XML DTD-like structure. It has a document 
root element, and a representation of syntax that one would expect from 
a complete DTD, symbolically generated through the XML document instance. 


Regards,

Murray Maloney



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