Re: [ubl-dev] Order items - substitution items - optimization

[Chin Chee-Kai <cheekai@SoftML.Net>]

At 01:14 PM 2007-01-17 -0700, David RR Webber \(XML\) wrote:
>Folks - just reviewing this - seems like Buyer and Seller substitution
>items are identical structurally (but HUGE!) - therefore it would make
>more sense to just have one of them in the schema structure -
>repeatable - and then a mandatory LineType of either "Buyer" /
>"Seller".

I'm afraid this would discard the whole point of cementing the semantics
of "Buyer" with the Buyer tag and the semantics of "Seller" with the Seller
tag which UBL 1.0 & 2.0 so readily provide now.

Informatically, you cannot throw away, or rather optimise (to put it
more nicely), the bit information of "Buyer/Seller".  This means that
if you have a GenericBuyerOrSeller tag, you're going to need a flag of
some sort as a child of that to distinguish them apart.  The decision
to use either
<GenereicBuyerOrSeller>
   <Flag>I-am-a-Buyer</Flag>
   ...
</GenereicBuyerOrSeller>
<GenereicBuyerOrSeller>
   <Flag>I-am-a-Seller</Flag>
   ...
</GenereicBuyerOrSeller>

OR

<Buyer>...</Buyer>
<Seller>...</Seller>

is thrashed out within UBL, and I suppose the common wisdom coming out
of UBL 1.0 & 2.0 is the latter form.




Best Regards,
Chin Chee-Kai
SoftML
Tel: +65-6820-2979
Fax: +65-6820-2979
Email: cheekai@SoftML.Net
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