[ubl-ndrsc]

["CRAWFORD, Mark" <MCRAWFORD@lmi.org>]

Title:

1.1     General Rules

1.      All UBL schemata and messages must be based on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) suite of technical specifications holding recommendation status.

2.      All UBL schema design rules must be based on the W3C XML Schema Recommendations

• XML Schema Part 1: Structures
• XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes

3.      All UBL type, element, and attribute names must use Oxford English

• The content/value of tags, attributes, etc. may be in any language

4.      Each UBL message must represent a single logical unit of information (such as invoice or purchase order) which will be conveyed in the root element

5.      The business function of a UBL message set must be unique and must not duplicate the business function of another message

6.      The name of the UBL message set must be consistent with its definition
7.      Each UBL message set must correspond to a business process model or models in the ebXML catalogue of business processes

8.      UBL messages must use the UTF-8/UNICODE character set
9.      UBL messages must express semantics fully in schemas and not rely merely on well-formedness.
10.     Instances conforming to schemas should be readable and understandable, and should enable reasonably intuitive interactions.

11.     UBL messages will be modeled for the abstractions of the user, not the programmer.
12.     UBL messages will use markup to make data substructures explicit (that is, distinguish separate data items as separate elements and attributes).

13.     UBL messages will use well known data types.
14.     Code lists should be cited by external reference. In terms of the eCo architecture, the provision of code lists may be regarded as a "service".

15.     In the context of a schema, information that expresses correspondences between data elements in different classification schemes ("mappings") may be regarded as metadata. This information should be accessible in the same manner as the rest of the information in the schema.

[Ed. Note-The above list needs scrubbed, and most items moved to appropriate subsections in Sections 5 and 6.]

Mark