Re: [ubl-lcsc] ASBIE semantics annotations (was Re: [ubl-lcsc] Re: Position Paper on List Containers)

["Anthony B. Coates" <abcoates@londonmarketsystems.com>]

** Reply to message from "Eve L. Maler" <eve.maler@sun.com> on Mon, 01 Sep 2003
19:12:51 -0400

> Don't our global elements have multiple uses necessitating multiple 
> references in different content models with different shades of meaning? 
>   This corresponds to the association BIE concept -- a "flavor" of an 
> aggregate BIE reflecting its use within a higher-level aggregate BIE. 
> My recommendation, quite a while back, was that we put the ASBIE 
> semantics in the <element ref=> annotations and the original ABIE 
> semantics in the <element name=> annotations...  It would be a shame if 
> this weren't possible with current tools, since otherwise those shades 
> of meaning have nowhere sensible to go.

Wanting to annotate element references is a perfectly reasonable aspiration,
and is supported by W3C XML Schema.  Unfortunately, of the two major XML Schema
editors (XML Spy & TurboXML, in no particular order), the latter will trash
element reference annotations if you open a Schema with it and then save that
Schema.  This is likely to cause confusion to a numerically significant
proportion of UBL users if UBL uses element reference annotations.

For my own part, I sometimes *fake* element reference annotations by annotating
element definitions with information about their children.  A little more
indirect, but technically equivalent, and a little more robust.  Alternatively,
this is another area where Schema Adjuncts would be useful, if OASIS could
bring that spec back from the dead.

	Cheers,
		Tony.
====
Anthony B. Coates
London Market Systems Limited
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