Re: [xml-dev] How to represent a "cost" in XML?

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

Would you accept using the term Price? UBL has both a structured 
price and an unstructured price:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.2/mod/summary/reports/All-UBL-2.2-Documents.html#Table-Price.Details

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.2/mod/summary/reports/All-UBL-2.2-Documents.html#Table-UnstructuredPrice.Details

Note that UBL uses the Core Component Technical Specification 2.01 
for its Core Component Types, one of which is "Amount" which includes currency:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/os-UBL-2.2/mod/summary/reports/All-UBL-2.2-Documents.html#UDT-Amount.Type

But from your email, although you say "cost", I wonder if simply the 
CCTS "Amount" will satisfy your needs. Note that "Amount" also 
includes an attribute for the version of the currency code list from 
which your code is being used. You may not be using "RON" currency, 
but a good example of versioning the code list is that a 2005 RON is 
worth over 200,000 1951 RON.

Amounts can be used for costs, for prices, for discounts, for taxes, 
for anything with a currency ... which isn't always a "cost".

In the future if you are looking for business semantics for XML or 
JSON, UBL defines a semantic library that is being adopted around the 
world for business documents:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Universal_Business_Language

I hope this is helpful.

. . . . . Ken

At 2018-09-26 21:44 +0000, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I would like to represent in XML the cost of something.
>
> Here's one way to represent it:
>
> <Cost currency="USD">8.95</Cost>
>
> If you didn't want to use attributes (or mixed content), how would 
> you represent it?
>
> Would you represent it like this:
>
> <Cost>
>     <Currency>USD</Currency>
>     <Value>8.95</Value>
> </Cost>
>
> I do not like that representation because it introduces a fake 
> <Value> element.
>
> Perhaps you would represent it by turning things inside out:
>
> <Value>
>     <Currency>USD</Currency>
>     <Cost>8.95</Cost>
> </Value>
>
> I'm not sure I even know what that means.
>
> Sigh.
>
> Any economists out there? Please do tell: what is "cost"?
>
> Cost seems to have (at least) two components: a number and an 
> indication of what system of money the number is based on. The 
> "system of money" is the currency. What about the number; what is 
> it? What label do you give to the number? When you talk about the 
> number, what words do you use?
>
> /Roger

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