RE: Old Issue again: What is an "id"

[David RR Webber - XMLGlobal <Gnosis_@compuserve.com>]

Kathryn and Sally both touch on something we had already solved
as was my understanding, so as to support core component needs.

We specifically have UID for this, and optional Major Version / Minor
Version,
and then the notion of External ID.

This is also a query object.   If the spec' is not clear - we simply need
to
make it clearer that UID is the human face and designed to allow
associative links to work.

Notice:   

UID                                             UUID

 X12EDI00678:01:00              234-662431-SDAFT-23425125-45654DFAFS-SZ3QT

 X12EDI00678:01:01              456-45745-68DFDV-32423FW-4356GEGFGF-5DFSF

From the UID we can clearly see that these reference the same item, but
slightly different varients.

We can also see a query on UID="%X12EDI00678%"  would net ALL entries
with that UID - showing us all versions.

This is not only human friendly - it is also machine essential to be able
to
retrieve sets of an item.

I would propose we add to Lens' proposal the external UID reference
mechanism,
and have something like:

<!ELEMENT Identifiers (Identifier+) >
<!ELEMENT Identifier (Reference, Registry) >
<!ATTLIST Identifier
          type ( UID | UDDI | URN | Other) #REQUIRED >

<!ELEMENT Reference  (#PCDATA) >
<!ELEMENT Registry   (#PCDATA) >

The UUID was always only intended to be an internal machine use only
reference mechanism for highspeed direct content accessing.

DW.
===========================================================================
Message text written by "Breininger, Kathryn R"
> 
There is a real need for human readable stuff to make it easier for the
poor
humans working with this to know what it is!  Clear communication is
essential, not only for those of us working on the specs, but it has to be
clear and understandable for the poor souls who are not in on all these
discussions and are trying to implement in conformance a year from now! 

<

Message text written by INTERNET:sfuger@AIAG.ORG
> 
Len,
I agree with your ideas here. The 128-byte UUID is definitely not friendly.
We are getting into some of the kinds of issues that the Core Components
folks have been wrestling with for many moons.

Sally
<