Code list versioning

[Konstantin Hypponen <Konstantin.Hypponen@uku.fi>]

Hi all,

I work in a project in which we develop document schemata for the social care domain in Finland. I've been checking different ways of handling code lists, and the Genericode/CVA approach seems to be the most flexible.

However, we have a problem similar to the one outlined by Linda van den Brink in one of the previous messages. Namely, we have to implement flexible code list versioning. The reason is that our code lists can change rather often. Municipality codes in Finland are a good example for this, as there is a trend for municipalities to merge, and there are many of them. New codes are added, old ones removed, and some can even change, theoretically.

We store all documents in the XML format in a database. Older documents use older versions of code lists, newly created ones use new versions. Old documents are never changed, so there is no need to validate them, but the interpretation of old code values should be possible. Therefore, information about code versions used in each document is needed.

One solution would be to store a CVA file together with each document, as it lists all the code list versions used in the document. Another solution is to use the listSchemeURI attributes in every element. I am more inclined to the second solution.

However, for the validation of newly created documents CVA files have to be updated every time a new version of a code list appears. This should be done automatically. Perhaps the easiest way is to create a CVA file hierarchy which corresponds to the XML Schema hierarchy. CVA files for each document type would <include> CVAs for core components, other base types, etc.

Has anyone been using CVA hierarchies and flexible code list versioning in their projects?

Best regards,
-- 
Konstantin Hyppönen, coordinator
Department of Computer Science
University of Kuopio
P.O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio
Tel. +358 44 3746911, +358 40 355 2208
Fax +358 17 16 2595