Re: building an object model of a XML schema

["Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@home.com>]

[Jeff Lowery]

> I looked at ORM and I'll take a look at Robin's pages but I can't see that
> UML modeling really addresses specifically what I'm looking for (although
> UML probably addresses everything, you just have to find it, learn it, and
> translate the pictures into real code).

Remember that UML as it stands now has some degree of flexibility, you can
use some of your own symbols and apply your own semantics to them.  An
example is OPEN's use of more clearly specified notions of composition and
containment.  So there might be some scope for adapting UML for your needs.

...
> I don't really want to model objects or XML, what I'm looking for is an
> abstract mapping of types.

The trouble with this is, I think, that xml "types" generally include
aspects of the xml syntax - that is, markup issues - but you wouldn't want
this things getting into your abstract "object" model, I imagine.

ASN.1 (yes, that again!) would seem to get quite close to what you have
said, but it's info set (equivalent) naturally doesn't have many of the xml
infoset constructs.  So when you want to automatically map asn.1 to xml or
vice-versa, you have to restrict the xml structures that you use.  If you're
willing to do that, you would definitely have some hope of a mapping to/from
"types.

Cheers,

Tom P