Applying metadata on XForms (earlier Microsoft's Doug Mahugh on custommetadata)

[Svante Schubert <Svante.Schubert@Sun.COM>]

John,

Interesting thought, but I fear it could become a little more complicated.

John F. Madden, MD, PhD wrote:

837A6C61-664E-415C-B2D7-92C7F1B2D371@duke.edu" type="cite">Apropos XForms, I think a future agenda item for the metadata group definitely ought to be a mechanism for generating RDF from XForms.
I've thought about this a bit, and it shouldn't be hard. It could be done in a variety of ways.

Some technical details on XForms:

1. The XML instance (the XML data file - currently in OOo only embedded in the content.xml) will always provide the data values from/for the form controls
   
2. The form controls (e.g. fields) do not contain/duplicate the data, it is always solely in the XML instance
3. There is a binding between the form control and XML data

837A6C61-664E-415C-B2D7-92C7F1B2D371@duke.edu" type="cite">The output of a standard XForm is typically some concrete xml; we'd just need to show how to add an rdf output stream and direct it to a metadata file.

Problems using metadata with RDF:

• The form control (e.g. field) even when identified by m:about/m:propert or xml:id, does not contain the content (only a binding)
• There is no way to bind RDF metadata directly to the XML instance, as usually a given schema for the XML instance does not allow xml:id  or m:about / m:property or any other RDF binding mechanism
• Even if we would solve the binding problem (e.g. by defining to add the xml:id on the draw controls representing the data in the gui) I am not aware of an universal way to generate an RDF output stream from arbitrary XML instances (e.g. UBL XML to UBL RDF)

PS: You can find an example ODT XForms document containing an UBL instance in one of my previous mails (two files ODT package and flat format zipped):
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/office-metadata/email/archives/200609/msg00052.html

Svante