[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
> At 02:51 PM 12/4/2002 -0500, W. E. Perry wrote:
> >Jonathan Robie wrote:
> >
> > > But I don't yet understand how the presence of a datatype can make
> > reuse more
> > > difficult - except, perhaps, by requiring a cast. Can you help me with a
> > > concrete example or two?
> >
> >Jonathan, I think you know that this question is ignoring my larger query--the
> >point which IMHO goes to the heart of what you are asking--which is whether
> >datatypes inhere in the representation of data (or in something like the terms
> >of Uche's article, whether class is intrinsic (the divine right of kings?)).
>
> I don't really understand your larger query. I'm pretty sure it's different
> from the question I was asking. How do I know whether datatypes inhere or not?
>
> >Nevertheless, since you ask for angle brackets, here is a snippet from my
> >morning's work:
> >
> ><PLO021204>
> ><C37042GHW9>S5M</C37042GHW9>
> ></PLO021204>
> >
> >This is actually an order to sell $5000 face of some notes.
>
> [[[ !!! SNIP !!! ]]]
>
> >However, the contractor for whom I am handling this
> >document cares only that this is one part of a larger order ('PLO') in the
> >day's trading. That contractor's job is to keep track of how many PLO pieces
> >are processed for each order in a given day--and the definition of what is a
> >given order depends on how many pieces there are. The process operated by that
> >contractor is specialized for, and understands only how to aggregate the
> >pieces
> >into an order, and what the definition of an order is, based on how the
> >(potential) pieces of it are actually handled in the course of a day's
> >trading.
>
> So you want me to get all of the elements whose names start with "PLO",
> without paying attention to the datatype, and put it onto an order? In XQuery:
>
> <order>
> {
> input()//*[starts-with(local-name(.), "PLO")]
> }
> </order>
>
> That works the same way with or without datatypes in the data.
Huh? From what I read here, you picked a random example of a code use case
out of a hat. I have no idea what the relevance is of your snippet above.
> >The software which will be used against this document understands *nothing* of
> >the document's content, as that content would be understood in datatyping it
> >for processing this document as an order. This means that you are asking my
> >contractor to implement an understanding of order content--as opposed to order
> >form--in his software, just so that he will be able to understand the
> >datatyping of content, in order ultimately to know that such content,
> >datatyped
> >or not, is of no use to him and will be thrown away unused. In other
> >words, you
> >want me to demand an understanding in my software of what by definition of its
> >function it will never use.
>
> I don't know why you would use datatypes with this particular data, since
> S5M does not seem to be a value for any numeric datatype in XML Schema. But
> their presence or absence doesn't really change the query I gave above. Can
> you describe some queries you think might be hard if datatypes are present?
Why? I don't see that Walter said that "any queries might be hard". The
questions seems entirely out of point.
--
Uche Ogbuji Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net http://4Suite.org http://fourthought.com
Tour of 4Suite - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/10/16/py-xml.html
Proper XML Output in Python - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/11/13/py-xml.html
RSS for Python - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-pyth11.html
Debug XSLT on the fly - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-debugxs.html
|
