Re: [ubl-dev] How to 'glue' two instances having different schemas?

["Anders W. Tell" <opensource@toolsmiths.se>]

Stephen, 

The first set of requirements was on one document with 0->* separate attachments but when looking at W3C's XOP there may be some very interesting extensions to the main enveloping principles. The document could be divided into fragments that are them included by XOP processor.


DocumentEnvelope {               (multipartmime)
  StandardBusinessDocumentHeader (technology agnostic addressing)
  EnvelopeProcessingInstructions 
  Integrity tokens 
  Document [1]                   (includes referenced documentFragment ala XOP)
  documentFragment [0..*]        (base64 or similar)
  Attachments [0..*]
}

altough by using the XOP:include feature the borderline between what is a a fragment of a document and what is an attachment becomes ever blurier.


/anders


Stephen Green wrote:

>Anders,
>
>Very interesting.
>Does this mean then that just the one XML document, in this
>schema, will have to be the main document and any other XML
>documents then included as attachments?
>
>All the best
>
>Steve
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Anders W. Tell" <opensource@toolsmiths.se>
>To: "Stephen Green" <stephen_green@seventhproject.co.uk>
>Cc: <ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org>
>Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 9:42 AM
>Subject: Re: [ubl-dev] How to 'glue' two instances having different schemas?
>
>
>  
>
>>Hi Stephen,
>>
>>Another way is to add to the solutionset what is being explored in
>>project up north. Were prototyping a set of DocumentEnvelope principles
>>that will allow us to transport document over most communication
>>technologies (technology-agnostic).
>>
>>In the  DocumentEnvelope currently the following is packaged {
>>  StandardBusinessDocumentHeader (excellent for technology neutral
>>addressing)
>>  EnvelopeProcessingInstructions ( additional handling instructions not
>>present in SBDH )
>>  Integrity tokens (signature or similar)
>>  Document [1]
>>  Attachments [0..*]
>>}
>>
>>All above is currently packed using MIME but MTOM and XOV modifications
>>are explored.
>>This provides us with a top level structure for end-to-end communication
>>which could be used for archiving
>>
>>It may handle some extensibility requirements but its not a general
>>extensibility content area principles.
>>
>>thanks
>>/anders
>>
>>
>>Stephen Green wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>In my days long ago as an invoice clerk I had to
>>>physically glue a ledger document slip to each
>>>invoice for processing (I guess this was standard
>>>accounting practise and perhaps still is for paper
>>>systems). The ledger slip could now be replaced
>>>with XBRL-GL, say, and the paper invoice with
>>>UBL, say. But what about the glue?
>>>
>>>In the old days (perhaps still now) the actual glue was
>>>important because a staple caused problems when the
>>>joint document was scanned (let alone causing
>>>a few cuts to fingers!). A paperclip easily fell off during
>>>transit too. In the same way I guess the workflow
>>>process might determine how best to 'glue' the xml
>>>ledger information to an electronic business document.*
>>>
>>>A recent comment from Bryan R prompted a response
>>>      
>>>
>>>from UBL suggesting that one attaches further, non-UBL
>>    
>>
>>>data to the UBL document using an outer document
>>>and I suggested using the UN/CEFACT ATG2
>>>Standard Business Document Header perhaps. That
>>>might be one way.
>>>In its favour: it is an all-standards based approach
>>>Against: is this the proper use of the SBDH? I suppose
>>>it was designed for messages (probably primarily for
>>>external transfers). Of course there might be a transfer
>>>of the XBRL-GL+UBL+SBDH XML to a central ledger,
>>>say but it might just be that the combination is stored
>>>in some way. Such storage might require that the
>>>combined document be disassembled (for example, so that
>>>each part is stored in a database cell associated with
>>>its respective schema, the SBDH, say, perhaps being
>>>reduced to just a relational key value).
>>>
>>>There are other ways to link the two (or more) documents
>>>of course; perhaps too many different ways. I'd suggest
>>>one standard way might be better to standardize the
>>>transfers between different systems (perhaps just as
>>>a best practise guide).
>>>
>>>Other ways:
>>>The XBRL-GL suggests either refering to the business
>>>document with a filename or url or actually including
>>>the document within the respective XBRL-GL field.
>>>The first two ways have the problem of how to specify
>>>a file path or full url if that changes during the processing
>>>(not a persistent url say). It could be a url relative to the
>>>XBRL-GL document but that too could be unpredictable.
>>>The second way I'd like to pick up on: How to include,
>>>say, a UBL document within, say, an XBR-GL document?
>>>The field in XBRL-GL by which to link to the document
>>>is just a string so I found one way is to escape the
>>>UBL XML document with CDATA front and end
>>>characters. This has the disadvantage of effectively hiding
>>>the UBL XML from XML-aware parsers - not good for
>>>getting at the UBL data (such as with XQuery or XPath).
>>>It probably depends on how temporary the combined
>>>set of documents will be and howit will subsequently
>>>be persisted.
>>>
>>>What would be nice would be an XSD xsd:xml datatype !
>>>
>>>Failing that, there is always xlink (or xinclude?). I'm not
>>>too up to date on all this but I gather there isn't too much
>>>tool support for dereferencing these.
>>>
>>>How about another idea (failing this I'd stick to the SBDH)
>>>- standardising the implementation at a higher level by
>>>introducing a CCTS 'XMLType' datatype, then worrying
>>>about how best to implement it at any time depending
>>>on the technologies available. This might create a problem
>>>for future ablilities to read the legacy data so I'm not really
>>>advocating it so much as putting out a 'strawman'.
>>>
>>>Any thoughts?
>>>
>>>Perhaps this is one for liaison between UBL and XBRL
>>>to establish a standard suggested linking mechanism.
>>>
>>>All the best
>>>
>>>Stephen Green
>>>
>>>*  The workflow processes do seem to follow paths which,
>>>though outside of UBL's scope perhaps, can still be
>>>standardised, as seems to happen in the accounting
>>>domain. At least best practise guidelines are usually
>>>provided.
>>>
>>>
>>>Here is the sort of workflow I envisage:
>>>
>>>1)
>>>
>>>Party A Finance System creates Ledger (such as XBRL-GL format)
>>>                                         and Business Document (such as
>>>      
>>>
>UBL format)
>  
>
>>>Ledger + Business Document + link (such as SBDH) --> Combination
>>>
>>>--> message
>>>
>>>Message sent to Central Finance System (General Ledger) for processing
>>>      
>>>
>and/or storage
>  
>
>>>2)
>>>
>>>Business Document (such as UBL format) --> message
>>>
>>>Message sent to Party B
>>>
>>>3)
>>>
>>>Party B Finance System receives Business Document (such as UBL format)
>>>
>>>4)
>>>
>>>Party B Finance System creates Ledger (such as XBRL-GL format)
>>>                                         for Business Document (such as
>>>      
>>>
>UBL format)
>  
>
>>>Ledger + Business Document + link (such as SBDH) --> Combination
>>>
>>>--> message
>>>
>>>Message sent to Central Finance System (General Ledger) for processing
>>>      
>>>
>and/or storage
>  
>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>
>
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