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Subject: Re: [ubl-dev] UBL Schema Documentation
It's interesting that the element names are themselves, to a great extent, self-describing. This comes partly from the methodology/algorithm used to determine the names which comes partly from the base standard implemented - 'CCTS' - and partly from the design methodology used to name the CCTS terms and qualifiers and partly from the naming and design rules which turn these term and qualifier names into element names. This ability for names of elements in XML to describe their own semantics could do with more mention when people talk about semantics and XML. It is highlighted by the fact that many of the 'definitions' of element names of UBL elements do little more than turn the components of the name and the name components of the parent element into a simple sentence or partial sentence. e.g. element name: "DespatchAdviceTypeCode" 'definition': "Identifies the type of the Despatch Advice." all this has done is change the word "code" to what semantically amounts to almost a synonym "identifier" (although it would have been more accurate to keep it as "code" which is different in that it has a codelist associated with it) and rearranges the components of the element name into a partial sentence (a predicate in this case). If the 'definition' had been "Codifies the type of the Despatch Advice." or "Code for the type of the Despatch Advice." there would be no more semantics in the definition except to adjust the element name a little for better human readability. One could argue that the element name has more semantic information and is less vague and less ambiguous than the definition in that it's structure obeys rules which add and more clearly express the semantics than does a prose, human readable sentence or predicate. When people create ontologies for the semantics of UBL what they seem to do is use the CCTS components used to make the element name and express those using an ontology then say that they have 'defined' the semantics. They haven't done more than rearrange the element name components according to ontology rules. So in short, reading the 'definitions' may in many cases be no better or even worse than interpreting the element name with reference to how that name is composed and to the name of the parent (or better still the 'dictionary entry name' but that is found together with the 'definition' anyway). So reading the documented schema where all these are found is not necessarily going to tell you a lot more than just 'reading' a UBL instance. In some cases it might confuse as when the 'definition' varies somewhat from the element name (as with the example above). I rant :-) Best regards Steve --- Stephen D Green On 8 February 2010 08:30, Mikkel Hippe Brun <mhb@tradeshift.com> wrote: > Jan - don't know if someone else has answered you. You can find > descriptions in in spreadsheets located in the UBL/mod/common and > UBL/mod/maindoc folders of the download from the OASIS-site. > > Best regards > Mikkel > > 2010/2/8 Šarūnas Jončas <s.joncas@simpleubl.com>: >> In addition to all the official documentation you can try looking at our >> modules API (http://www.simpleubl.com/api/) which describes each UBL 2.0 >> document and it's field. >> >> Best regards, >> >> Sarunas >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Jan Algermissen [mailto:algermissen1971@mac.com] >> Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 12:53 PM >> To: ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org >> Subject: [ubl-dev] UBL Schema Documentation >> >> Hi, >> >> sorry if this has come up before, but I am really unable to find what I am >> looking for: >> >> Can anyone point me to the documentation of the UBL XML schemas? What I am >> looking for is a document that explains what each element means. >> >> Jan >> >> >> >> >> ----------------------------------- >> Jan Algermissen, Consultant >> NORD Software Consulting >> >> Mail: algermissen@acm.org >> Blog: http://www.nordsc.com/blog/ >> Work: http://www.nordsc.com/ >> ----------------------------------- >> >> >> >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: ubl-dev-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: ubl-dev-help@lists.oasis-open.org >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: ubl-dev-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: ubl-dev-help@lists.oasis-open.org >> >> > > > > -- > Best regards, > Mikkel > > Mikkel Hippe Brun > Chief Technology Officer, Cofounder > > Voice: +45 3118 9102 > Skype: hippebrun > Twitter: @hippebrun @tradeshift > Mail: mhb@tradeshift.com > Web: http://tradeshift.com > > Tradeshift Network Ltd / 37 Friars Avenue / London / N20 0XG / UK > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: ubl-dev-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org > For additional commands, e-mail: ubl-dev-help@lists.oasis-open.org > >
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