Public Comment

[comment-form@oasis-open.org]

Comment from: kit@mitre.org

CAM Specification v1.0 Committee Draft.
Review comments by Kit Lueder, The MITRE Corp.
Phone 703-883-5205.
Thank you.

4.2	Assembly Structures:
It should be able to reference the XML assemblyStructure as an external file, rather than having to include it in-line in this same file. This can be a maintenance nightmare, otherwise. Suppose you have a hundred trading partners (TP), and you provide one of these CAM structures for each TP. If you have to include the XML assemblyStructure in-line in each of these hundred files, it is difficult to maintain as the structure evolves; it is easy to maintain if they all reference the same external file.

It should be able to reference an XML Schema now, using the external file reference capability I cite above. A minimal capability would be to reference a file path for where the XML Schema file is.


Section 4.3, Figure 4.3.3:
Why does it distinguish between an attribute and an element? Why not have one mechanism, and if the xpath parameter refers to an attribute, it is an attribute that is excluded?:
excludeAttribute () //elementpath@attributenameConditionally exclude attribute from structure
excludeElement() //elementpath	Conditionally exclude element from structure


It should clarify if makeOptional() and makeMandatory() apply to attributes as well as to elements. 
If so, why does one function apply to both element and attribute, while "exclude" does not? If not, how do you make an attribute optional vs mandatory?:
makeOptional()	//elementpath	Conditionally allow part of structure to be optional
makeMandatory()	//elementpath	Conditionally make part of structure required


Taxonomy is defined as follows. I suggest that one CAM file should be able to reference another CAM file, to apply additional constraints. Thus, "CAM" should be another possible value for taxonomy attribute.:
taxonomy (XSD | DTD | RNG | XML | EDI | HTML | MERGE | OTHER)   #REQUIRED >


Rather than just "EDI" in "taxonomy", it should differentiate between "X12", "EDIFACT", and "HL7".