RE: building an object model of a XML schema

[Michael Brennan <Michael_Brennan@allegis.com>]

> From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) [mailto:clbullar@ingr.com]

<snip/>

> What if the idea is that the XML Schema is a set of reusable 
> types, a toolkit that is then included/imported/redefined/substituted 
> into other application languages?  I also haven't 
> exported a schema out of UML, but it seems to me it 
> may include classes that such a design would not use.

I've thought about this one, myself. I'm in general agreement with Ronald
Bourret. I believe in defining the object model or data model used by the
application in a manner that suits the needs of the application. The XML
document model should be separate, and an appropriate mapping defined
between them. The XML can then just be treated as a serialization format or
command syntax (or both, in our case). The mapping need not be monolithic,
though. If you have reusable types in your application's object model, and
reusable structures in your XML documents that have some meaningful
correlation to types in your object model, than why not have mappings
between the two as reusable modules that can be used by other mapping
modules?

That's the tack I'm trying to take now with our integration toolset, though
I haven't gotten very far in implementation, yet.

Note that we don't mechanically generate schemas from UML models. That
approach is suitable for some purposes, but we define the two independently,
then define a mapping between the two.