Are
there any best practices for using wrapper elements in XML Schemas? We are having an internal debate on
the merits of using wrappers, I summarize my opinions below.
The
debate……should a set of symptoms be represented by a series of
symptom tags alone or should they be contained in a <symptoms> wrapper
element.
<symptoms>
<symptom> This is symptom 1
</symptom>
<symptom> This is symptom 2
</symptom>
<symptom> This is symptom 3
</symptom>
</symptoms>
My
initial thoughts:
I think wrappers are useful when
you need to group some tags and possibly need a lead wrapper element to
capture some attributes or metadata.
For example (yes this might be a bit silly) perhaps we want to know the
symptoms based on how long they have been persisting. Maybe some symptoms have been around
for 7 days and other for just 3.
The following XML, using wrapper elements, accomplishes the description
of this quite well.
<symptoms
duration=”3”>
<symptom>cough</symptom>
<symptom>sneezing</symptom>
<symptom>runny
nose</symptom>
</symptoms>
<symptoms
duration=”7”>
<symptom>dizziness</symptom>
<symptom>stomach
ache</symptom>
</symptoms>
Of course, this is
just my opinion, and one I would like some community backing for before I
espouse this as a “best practice” within my organization. This might just be a matter of style,
but I’m interested in how other developers are determining
this.
Brian
Magick