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   Re: [xml-dev] Re: Flexible Schemas (was RE: [xml-dev] The task tobe solv

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At 4:57 PM -0800 1/19/02, Dare Obasanjo wrote:
>I believe the thrust of Nicolas' question is where to find the RDDL document
>for an XML file that utilizes names from multiple namespaces. No one has
>proposed a *concrete* answer to that question yet although the designers of
>RDDL may consider this to be beyond the design goals of RDDL which is
>reasonable.
>

There is no such document. One more time: A RDDL document describes a 
namespace name, not a document.

>For instance the following is the first element in an annotated XSD mapping
>schema for creating XML views of relational data in SQL server 2000
>
><xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema";
>             xmlns:dt="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:datatypes"
>             xmlns:sql="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:mapping-schema">
>
>The question is where will one locate the metadata/resources/etc for
>documents of this type? Or should we be satisfied with a.) everyone MUST use
>HTTP URLs for their namespace URIs and b.) everyone must have RDDL information
>at these URIs?
>

That's up to the people who created those namespaces. If they choose 
they can put RDDL documents there. If they choose not to put 
documents there, or to use unresolvable URIs, that's also there 
business. RDDL provides an option. It can't force anybody to use it.

>What if the developer of this new document type wants to create RDDL
>information for this type of document? Do we introduce some new construct, For
>instance perhaps a
>xml:rsrcnamespace="http://www.example.com/xmlschema/msft-datatypes/msft-mappin
>g-schema" to solve this problem?
>

The developer of the new document type is not involved in these 
decisions, only the developer who creates a new namespace URI.

>So back to Nicolas's question, looking at the source of the document at
>http://www.rddl.org I see the following namespace declarations
>
>   xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";
>   xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink";
>   xmlns:rddl="http://www.rddl.org/";
>
>So what is the algorithm to obtain all (or some) of the metadata related to
>the above namespace declarations used in the document at http://www.rddl.org ?

Go to each of the URLs and load the RDDL document that's there, 
assuming the owners of the URLs have chosen to put such a document 
there. (We can't force them to do that, of course.)

>Such as obtaining the W3C XML schema for validating this document or obtain
>all the normative references that apply to the document.

It may not be possible to do this. RDDL makes no guarantees about 
which resources exist for any given namespace. It simply provides a 
convenient way to list those resources that do exist. However, you 
could try this, which would work provided all the namespace 
maintainers have put RDDL documents locating schemas for their 
namespace at the namespace URLs:

1. Start at the root element of the document.
2. Load the RDDL document for its namespace. Search that document for 
the rddl:resource element whose xlink:role and xlink:arcrole 
attributes indicate a schema of the type you want.
3. Use the xlink:href attribute of that rddl:resource element to 
locate the URL for the schema that applies to the root element.
4. Apply that schema to the root element.

At this point with some schema languages, e.g. DTDs, we're 
effectively done, because validity is equivalent to validity of the 
root element. However, for those schema languages where this is not 
the case, recursively apply the algorithm to all the child elements 
of the root element (and their children, and their children's 
children, and so forth)

This all assumes that the necessary RDDL documents are in the right 
place and have the right rddl:resource elements that point to schemas 
written in the desired schema language; that these schema documents 
are syntactically correct, that the network hasn't gone down, and a 
dozen other constraints, none of which RDDL addresses, but that's OK. 
RDDL, like XML, is an enabling technology. It allows namespace 
purveyors to implement this scheme if they choose. It does not 
mandate that they do so.

Liek XML itself, we can't force people to use RDDL. Also like XML, if 
a lot of people are doing similar tasks, then they'd probably rather 
use RDDL and standard tools than reinvent their own solutions.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
|          The XML Bible, 2nd Edition (Hungry Minds, 2001)           |
|              http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible2/              |
|   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764547607/cafeaulaitA/   |
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