OASIS Registry and Repository DTD Documentation

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Table of Contents

1. XML Infrastructure
1.1. Driver DTD
1.2. Common Declarations Module
1.3. semantic-entity-list.ent
2. Lists of Semantics
2.1. administrative-status-list.ent
2.2. data-element-association-list.ent
2.3. mime-type-list.ent
2.4. name-context-label-list.ent
2.5. other-xsgml-list.ent
2.6. submission-purpose-list.ent
3. Classification Scheme DTD
4. Administrative Metadata DTD
5. Data Element DTD
6. Registry DTD
7. URN Resolver Preferences DTD

9 April 2000

This document contains documentation, including design rationale and semantic explication, for the DTDs, entities, and samples used for the Registry Technical Specification.

These DTDs and entities provide markup for

Supporting this markup are certain elements of XML infrastructure and a set of entities composed of lists of semantics.

1. XML Infrastructure

1.1. Driver DTD

The driver.dtd DTD invokes all the other DTDs, for simplicity in development. All examples refer to this DTD in their DOCTYPE declarations. If and when the DTD set is remodularized, this DTD can be dispensed with.

1.2. Common Declarations Module

common.ent declares entities and element declarations used in more than one DTD.

common-attribute-group

parameter entity for attributes that may occur on many elements; as of version 0.3, this is only a CDATA identifier attribute. Per ISO/IEC 11179, an “identifier” is “an unambiguous name for an object within a given context” (Part 1, definition 3.3.33); here it has a heavily syntactic significance.

uri-reference

a linking element, which may take either a URL or a URN as the value of its uri-string attribute. The targets of uri-references should be accessible online.

1.3. semantic-entity-list.ent

This entity declares nearly all the parameter entities represented by individual entity files, for inclusion in driver.dtd. Most of these parameter entities are invoked in attribute value lists, to provide controlled vocabularies.

2. Lists of Semantics

These lists of semantics are XML OR groups, for use in attribute value lists.

2.1. administrative-status-list.ent

This entity is an OR list of terms for administrative status. It is provisional. The point of view is that of the RA: submitted entities may have been received, rejected, and so on.

2.2. data-element-association-list.ent

This entity is an OR list of relationships between associated data elements. A data element may supersede or be used by an associated data element, and so on.

2.3. mime-type-list.ent

This entity is an OR list of MIME types, with the slashes replaced by hyphens to make the strings useable within attribute value lists. The list provided is only a starter set.

2.4. name-context-label-list.ent

This entity is an OR list of specific name contexts (types of names) relevant to names for SGML- and XML-related entities: a name supplied by the registered entity (such as its title), an FPI, or a URN. The list provided is a starter set only.

2.5. other-xsgml-list.ent

This entity is an OR list of types of XML and SGML entities that are not necessarily tied to a specific DTD or schema: OASIS (formerly SGML Open) catalogue, SGML declaration, and public text. This is a starter set and could be expanded.

2.6. submission-purpose-list.ent

This entity is a list of reasons for submitting something to an RA. It is intended to support the nonnormative cover-letter element in the context of submission. See the sample cover letter. The values are:

new-submission

the submitted item(s) are new to the registy, and it is requested that they be registered in accordance with terms of business previously or to be established between the SO and the RA.

revision-submission

the submitted item(s) are revisions of items already submitted by the same SO and registered by the same RA, and it is requested that they be registered.

superseding-submission

the submitted item(s) supersede items already registered; it is requested that those items have their status changed to "superseded" with a data element association to the superseding items, but that they be retained in the registry.

retirement-instruction

no item is submitted, but the indicated registered item is requested to be withdrawn from the registry, its metadata to be retained with the status changed to "retired".

retraction-instruction

no item is submitted, but the indicated submitted (not necessarily registered item) is requested to be suppressed without retention of its metadata.

3. Classification Scheme DTD

The classification scheme DTD provides for the description of a classification scheme per ISO/IEC 11179. See the sample file classif.txt for a taxonomy and the sample file contents.txt for a listing of registry contents according to such a taxonomy.

classification-scheme

a classification scheme, as defined in Part 2, 3.3.3. administrative-metadata-group is declared in admin.dtd; following that, classification-scheme contains classification-scheme-items. In accordance with ISO/IEC 11179, classification-scheme bears attributes classification-scheme-identifier (provided in order to have something by which to point to the scheme in registration metadata), classification-scheme-type (Part 2, 4.5.2), which indicates the type of the scheme, such as “taxonomy”; classification-scheme-item-type (Part 2, 4.5.5), which indicates the type of item the scheme contains, such as “taxon” classification-scheme-name (Part 2, 4.5.3), which is the natural language name of the classification scheme; and classification-scheme-version (Part 2, 4.5.4), which is the classification scheme's own version indicator.

classification-scheme-item

“components of content in a classification scheme” (Part 2, 3.4). It is recursive, beginning with classification-scheme-item-label-set, a grouping of labels, to allow labels in, e.g., multiple languages; continuing with an optional prose classification-scheme-item-description; an optional classified-item-set, which is a listing of registered entities to which the containing classification scheme item pertains; and concluding with any number of further classification-scheme-items, such as subclassifications. This element bears an attribute, classification-scheme-item-value (Part 2, 4.5.6), “an instance of the name, or identifier, or definition, etc. of a classification scheme item.#148;

classification-scheme-item-label-set

a container element for a set of classification-scheme-item-labels.

classification-scheme-item-label

a name or label of the classification scheme item (an extension to ISO/IEC 11179).

classification-scheme-item-description

a prose description of the classification scheme item (an extension to ISO/IEC 11179).

classified-item-set

a container element for classified items.

classified-item

an entry for an item to which the enclosing classification scheme item applies, which shall be registered in the registry (Part 2, 3.5, “classified component”). It contains a classified-item-label, the name of the item; a classified-item, a prose description of the item; and a classified-item-reference, containing a uri-reference pointing to or naming the item as registered in the registry.

4. Administrative Metadata DTD

This DTD provides administrative metadata relevant to all kinds of registered entities, particularly contact and role information. It is used along with the Data Element DTD.

organization-group-content

a parameter entity for the content model of elements for the various organizations required in the ISO/IEC 11179 model. A name of the organization (entity-name) or a reference to it by URI must be supplied, followed by an optional address and any number of persons or entities named as contacts. The point of allowing a reference to an entity by URI is to enable references by URN to lists of organizations maintained by a RA.

parties-contact-information-group

binds information about RA, SO, and, optionally,RO.

administrative-metadata-group

container element for ISO/IEC 11179 administrative metadata. This metadata consists of information about RA, SO, and RO, optionally followed by the following: intellectual property policy statement of SO for the entity for which this is the metadata, version of registered or submitted entity, its registration and administrative status, its expiry date, and dates of approval, latest modification, and receipt.

registration-authority

information about the RA (Part 1, definition 3.3.56: “an organization authorized to register data elements or other object” [perhaps self-authorized]

submitting-organization

information about the SO (Part 1, definition 3.3.66: “the organization or unit within an organization that has submitted the data element for addition, change, cancellation, or withdrawal in the data element registry”)

responsible-organization

information about the RO (Part 1, definition 3.3.63: “the organization or unit within an organization that is responsible for the contents of the mandatory attributes by which the data element is specified”)

registration-status

an empty element the value of the status attribute of which is undefined, as different RAs may use different values. (Part 1, definition 3.3.58: “a designation of the position in the registration life cycle of a data element”; ISO/IEC 11179 values are provided in Part 6, section 6.3). oasis-customization.ent provides several values by redeclaring a parameter entity; see the sample files for usage.

administrative-status

an empty element the value of the status attribute of which is drawn from administrative-status-list.ent (Part 1, definition 3.3.2: “a designation of the position in the registration life cycle of a data element”; values are provided in Part 6, section 6.4).

intellectual-property-policy

non-11179 element containing either a pointer to an intellectual property policy statement of SO for the entity for which this is the metadata or a description of it.

intellectual-property-policy-description

non-11179 element stating in plain text an intellectual property policy statement of SO for the entity for which this is the metadata or a description of it.

version

Part 1, definition 3.3.76: “the identification of an issue of a data element specification in a series of evolving data element specifications within a registration authority” Its content is a string, and it has a finality attribute (an extension if ISO/IEC 11179), the value of which may be draft or final (the default).

expiry-date

Part 3, clause A.5.2: “date at which the use of a data element expires in an application area.” Its content is a string, for this specification in a format meeting the requirements of “Date and Time Formats,” the W3C profile of ISO 8601.

date-of-approval

Part 3, clause A.5.4: “date when the data element is accepted for inclusion in the data element dictionary.” Its content is a string, for this specification in a format meeting the requirements of “Date and Time Formats,” the W3C profile of ISO 8601.

date-of-latest-modification

Part 3, clause A.5.5: “date of the latest change in one or more attributes of the data element being specified in the data element dictionary.” Its content is a string, for this specification in a format meeting the requirements of “Date and Time Formats,” the W3C profile of ISO 8601.

date-of-receipt

Part 3, clause A.5.6: “date of receipt of a maintenance request for a data element from a submitting organization.” Its content is a string, for this specification in a format meeting the requirements of “Date and Time Formats,” the W3C profile of ISO 8601.

entity-name

the name of an organization. Its content is a string. In the context of its use in submitting-organization, it should name the smallest possible unit of an organization, to facilitate tracking of multiple SOs belonging to the same large organization but unaware of each other.

entity-name-uri-reference

a URI reference to an entity name (permitting reference by URN). Its content is a uri-reference element.

parent-entity-name

the name of an organization that is a parent entity of the entity named by entity-name or pointed to by entity-name-uri-refernce. Its content is a string.

parent-entity-name-uri-reference

a URI reference to the name of a parent entity of the entity named by entity-name or pointed to by entity-name-uri-refernce. Its content is a uri-reference element.

contact

Container for contact and address elements, which are taken from Part 6. In this domain ISO/IEC 11179 seems adequate but not authoritative. This scheme should be checked against and aligned with the vcard specification and X.500. Only an address is required, as some registries may have no personal registrars.

personal-name

the name of a person. Its content is a string.

honorific

An honorific title, such as “Mr.”

occupation-title

A work-related title, such as “Executive Director.”

address

container for all address information

url

a URL for contacting the contact.

post

a postal address for the contact. Its content is a string in which record ends (line breaks) are significant, so that an address may be printed correctly from the contained information.

email

an email address for the contact.

telephone

a telephone number for the contact

fax

a fax number for the contact

keyword-set

a container element for keyword elements

keyword

Part 1, definition 3.3.37: “significant word used for retrieval of data elements.” For the purposes of this specification, keywords are drawn from uncontrolled vocabularies (controlled vocabularies shall be represented as classification schemes).

cover-letter

defines a cover letter for a submission package, which must state the purpose of the submission. It contains a parties-contact-information-group, a submission-purpose, and any number of data-element-association elements, which identify the entity or entities that are the object of the submission.

submission-purpose

an empty element identifying the purpose of a submission, as given in its purpose attribute, the value of which is drawn from submission-purpose-list.ent.

5. Data Element DTD

This DTD has been developed from one written by Eliot Christian of the U.S. Geographical Survey for use with the Government Information Locator Standard (GILS). It does not (yet) support compound data elements, instead, attention has been given to associating administrative metadata with data element dictionaries (as DTDs and schemas are regarded in this specification) and sets of data element dictionaries). Sample files, showing the complete metadata for the Docbook DTD as an example of a set of registered entities, are db1.txt, db2.txt, db3.txt, db4.txt, db5.txt, db6.txt, and db7.txt, dbrelated.txt describes the set of related data for Docbook (documentation, style sheets, etc.).

data-element-content

a parameter entity for the nonadministrative content of data elements, data element dictionaries, and data element dictionary sets. In it, a data element concept is followed by an optional set of data element associations, a required representation, one or more name contexts (allowing the data element concept to be associated with multiple names in multiple contexts), and either a reference to a group of related data declarations or a set of such declarations.

data-element-reference

a reference by URI to a data element; its content is a uri-reference element.

data-element-dictionary-reference

a reference by URI to a data element dictionary; its content is a uri-reference element.

data-element-dictionary-set

a set of data element dictionaries, devised so that the various modules of a DTD can be characterized as data element dictionaries while allowing their common administrative metadata to be held at this higher level. Its content is an administrative-metadata-group (which is optional to allow administrative metadata to be given at a lower level), an optional set of keywords, the content of all data element elements, and one or more URI references to data element dictionaries or data element dictionaries themselves.

data-element-dictionary

Part 3, clause 3.5: “an information resource that specifies, defines,and lists all relevant data elements,” the ISO/IEC 11179 concept to which DTDs and schemas are assimilated in this specification. Its content is an administrative-metadata-group (which is optional to allow administrative metadata to be given at a lower or higher level), an optional set of keywords, the content of all data element elements, and either a URI reference to the actual data element dictionary for which this is the metadata, or, optionally, any number of data elements or URI references to them, followed by optional related-data elements.

data-element

Part 1, definition 3.3.14: “unit of data for which the definition, identification, representation, and permissible values are specified by means of a set of attributes.” Part 2, section 6: “ the combination of an object class and a property is a data element concept.” It contains an optional administrative-metadata-group and data-element-content.

data-element-concept

Part 1, definition 3.3.15: “concept that can be represented in the form of a data element, described independently of any particular representation.” It contains an optional binding of object class to property (optional, as these concepts have not yet been clarified as being relevant to data element dictionaries), a definition-text element (in ISO/IEC 11179 the description of a data element concept is primary; the names of that data element are secondary, and the concept may exist independently of any name), and any number of classification elements, permitting the data element concept to be rooted in any number of classification schemes.

Part 1, definition 3.3.45: “set of objects. A set of ideas, abstractions, or things in the real world that can be identified with explicit boundaries and meaning and whose properties and behavior follow the same rules.” Its value is a string (provisionally).

property

Part 1, definition 3.3.48: “a peculiarity common to all members of an object class.” Its value is a string (provisionally).

data-element-association

Part 3, section A.3.1; roughly, an association with other data elements (peers, parents, children), as opposed to other related data (documentation, examples). It contains an optional label and a URI reference element; it has a data-element-association-type attribute, the value of which is drawn from data-element-association-list.ent.

data-element-association-label

a word or phrase naming a data element association; its content is a string.

representation

Part 1, definition 3.3.60: “the combination of a value domain, datatype, and, if necessary, a unit of measure or a character set.” Part 1, definition 3.3.61:: “type of symbol, character or other designation used to represent a data element.” For example, a DTD may be supplied in text or PDF. ISO/IEC 11179 supplies more content for this element than seems needed for registering DTDs and schemas, but it has been retained anyway: a label, a label for a datatype, a description of format, a name for character set, and a unit of quantity.

representation-label

in ISO/IEC 11179, “representation term”, here renamed for consistency and employed a bit loosely; Part 1, definition 3.3.62: “a component of a data element name which describes the form of representation of the data element.” Its content is a string, customizable by the RA. See oasis-customization.ent for a customization for XML-related entities, and the sample files for usage.

datatype-label

a string indicating the datatype of the data element or data element dictionary; possibly overlapping with representation-label. Part 1, definition 3.3.25, for “datatype”: “the format used for the collection of letters, digits, and/or symbols, to depict values of a data element, determined by the operations that may be performed on the data element.”

format

an empty element, indicating through its mime-type attribute the MIME type of the registered entity.

character-set-name

a string naming the character set of a registered entity.

unit-of-quantity

a string naming the unit of quantity used for values of a data element; not relevant to registration of DTDs and schemas.

name-context

the context within which a name associated with a data element concept is relevant. It consists of a label and one or more designation-name elements. This construction allows for expansion of information about a name context.

name-context-label

a string naming the name context, if that context is not among the values of the defined-label attribute (which are drawn from name-context-label-list.ent); if there is an applicable value, omit the string and leave the element empty.

designation-name

a string providing the name within the name context.

definition-text

a string describing the meaning of the data element concept in the containing name context.

classification

provides a classification by identifying a classification scheme (classification-scheme-identifier-reference) and the classification item within that scheme (classification-scheme-item-value-reference); these can be, for example, the identifier of a taxonomy and the identifier of a taxon. The first is optional, as it may be possible to locate the taxon with a single identifier. Both the classification scheme and the classification scheme item should be accessible in some registry.

classification-scheme-identifier-reference

a URI reference to a classification scheme

classification-scheme-item-value-reference

a URI reference to a classification scheme item

related-data

Related data may require administrative metadata, which this element may hold, along with a related-data-reference, and optional representation.

related-data-reference

Part 3, definition 6.3.3: “a reference between the data element and any related data.” Related data is exclusive of that which may be the subject of a data-element-association element. It is composed of a label and a URI reference, and has a relationship-of-related attribute, the value of which is left for the RA to define and means “the named or pointed-to related entity is the/a (relationship type) for this (the containing) data element.” See oasis-customization.ent for an example of customizing the content of this attribute.

related-data-reference-label

a string indicating the relationship with the related data, intended for display only

related-data-group

container element for a whole set of related data references, with a reference to the data element or data element dictionary to which they are related. See the sample file dbrelated.txt.

related-data-group-reference

a URI reference to a group of related data, bearing a fixed relationship-of-related attribute with the value “related-data-group.”

more-information

a URI reference to a document containing more information about the registered entity; this could be an extended version of the registration information in which the more-information element occurs, just the extensions, or something else altogether.

6. Registry DTD

The registry DTD provides for the description of all of the content of a registry per ISO/IEC 11179. It is only an exercise; no functional requirement has been discovered that would require its use.

register

container element for the contents of a registry (Part 1, definition 3.3.53, “a set of files [paper, electronic, or a combination] containing the assigned data elements and the associated information. See also data element registry”) marked up in XML. It may contain the upper-level elements so far defined in this specfication, which is not (yet) the full set specified by ISO/IEC 11179.

7. URN Resolver Preferences DTD

The URN resolver preferences DTD provides for client-side instructions to a user agent for where to look for URN resolution services. It permits allows URN preferences to be organized by URN name space identifier (NID) with fall-through to default resolvers that may be consulted in specified order or in random order. See the sample file urnsamp.txt.

urn-resolver-preferences

container element for any number of sets of NID-specific preferences (one per NID, as desired), and a single optional set of general resolver preferences. An instance conforming to this DTD may be empty aside from this element, or may have empty resolver preferences sets, to support a neutral initial state.

nid-specific-resolver-set

container for any number of NID-specific resolver preferences. It has a nid attribute, the value of which shall be the NID applicable to the entire set, and a sequence attribute, which may be used to avoid overloading servers near the top of the list of preferences: it may have the value random or sequential (the default).

general-resolver-set

container for any number of general resolver preferences (preferences for resolvers for URNs with NIDs that are not provided a NID-specific resolver preference or for which that resolver or resolvers did not resolve the URN successfully). It has a sequence attribute, which may be used to avoid overloading servers near the top of the list of preferences: it may have the value random or sequential (the default).

resolver

a single resolution service, the URL of which is given in the url attribute.

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