xml-dev - RE: Playing with XML Schema & XSLT

[johns@syscore.com (John F. Schlesinger)]

Jean-Marc wrote:
"About that, I regret that the first example in the introduction to XML
Schema has a tag <shippingDate> , and not <shipping><date>, which is
extendible, and allows machine understanding."

Personally, I don't think using <date> as the name for an element of type
date adds much to the semantics of the document or message. Usually a date
has some meaning - in this case I would look to use <WhenShipped> or
<WhenLoaded> or <WhenLanded> or <WhenUnloaded> or <WhenToShip> etc.

As for helping the machine, why not use a schema that tells the machine this
is an element of type date, rather than making the machine guess the type
from the name?

Isn't <shipping> a rather odd name for an element? It seems to be more a
general concept than a particular thing (like, say, <Shipment>)?

Yours,
John F Schlesinger
SysCore Solutions
212 619 5200 x 219
917 886 5895 Mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xml-dev@xml.org [mailto:owner-xml-dev@xml.org]On Behalf Of
Jean-Marc Vanel
Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 2:27 AM
To: xml-dev@xml.org; wwbota@egroups.com; daniel.rivers-moore@rivcom.com;
Ioana.Manolescu@inria.fr
Subject: Playing with XML Schema & XSLT


Suppose I have a repository of XML Schemas describing a set of XML
databases (see [1]).
Then in my application I need a access a piece of information.
How do I locate the relevant database ? How do I make a query ?

If I directly express my query in XPath, XSLT, or Quilt, etc, it will
not be easy to locate the relevant database, because XPath is not XML.
So I propose to leverage the power of XML Schema and express my query in
XML Schema; this schema instance is what I call the "Desired Schema".
Then with some generic DOM, or maybe XSLT programming, I can make tree
pattern recognition to locate the Desired Schema among the available
Schemas (the repository of XML Schemas).
Having found a Schema offering an information equal or larger than the
Derired Schema, and the corresponding server or base URL, I can then
generically translate the Desired Schema into an XSLT query, or SQL,
QUILT, XQL or whatever.

So I propose to use XML Schema as a primary language for XML Queries.

But how do I guess or generate the Desired Schema in the first place ?
There must be some consenssus, some common set of tags.  I propose to
use as much as possible natural language tags, eventually
disambiguited by Wordnet [2] sense number. For non-concepts, certainly
95%
of the design objects can be represented this way. About that, I regret
that the first example in the introduction to XML Schema has a tag
<shippingDate> , and not <shipping><date>, which is extendible, and
allows machine understanding.
For concepts, I agree that compound tags are necessary, because many
things don't have a name, e.g. schemaLocation in XML Schema; and it
would be bad to borrow a general term and apply a particular sense to
it.
So I propose to use the combinatory richness of human language in
computer matters, and have small modular vocabularies combined in larger
XML Schemas.


[1] XML All-purpose Protocol ( XML distributed architecture )
http://wwbota.free.fr/XMLprotocol.htm

[2] Wordnet  http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn

--
<person>
  <firstName>Jean-Marc</firstName>
  <lastName>Vanel</LastName>
  <motto>Veni, vidi, convici</motto>
  <conference>9th International World Wide Web Conference - Amsterdam,
May 15-19, 2000
   <a href="http://www.www9.org/">site</a>
  </conference>
  <project>Worlwide Botanical Knowledge Base -
      making botany available on Internet
    <a href="http://wwbota.free.fr/" >site</a>
  </project>
  <a href="http://jmvanel.free.fr/>home page</a>
  <a href="mailto:jmvanel@free.fr">mail (possibly put "wwbota" in
subject to route your mail in relevant folder)</a>
</person>





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