[xquery-talk] Linking XML documents and constraining those links

[Andrew Eisenberg]

I'm sending this message on behalf of my colleague John Arwe, co-chair of 
the W3C SML WG.



The W3C Service Modeling Language working group expects to publish a 
second (and hopefully final!) Last Call Working Draft "real soon now". 
Some reviewers from the XQuery working group mentioned that the topic of 
referential integrity for sets of linked XML documents might be of 
sufficient interest to these lists that it would be worth soliciting a 
review.  Besides, they're great beach reading ;-)
Some of the earlier articles on SML attributed to it a somewhat different 
scope [1], either wider or narrower depending upon your point of view. 
With that in mind, here is an outline of the topics actually in scope for 
SML as currently defined:
SML - definition of concepts for a model (a set of XML documents)
- Model validity ~ instances valid against XML Schema documents and any 
associated Schematron documents
- XML instance document extensions
- - Extensible syntax for recognizing SML references (conceptually, links) 
between document elements ... element A in document 1 links to element B 
in document 2, etc
- XML Schema extensions
- - Constraining SML references based on various criteria, e.g. target 
element, target element's type, are cycles allowed
- - Cross-document identity constraints (key, unique, keyref)
- - Association of Schematron rules with global elements and global 
complex types
SML-IF - interchange format, adds concrete syntax for exchanging models in 
cases where SML defines concepts but not syntax
- Association of XML Schema and Schematron documents with other model 
documents
- Association of 0..n URI aliases with each model document

Review drafts and instructions for providing comments are on the working 
group's page [2].  Until the new LC drafts are available (likely 
mid-July), we recommend using the editor's copies also available at [2]. 
[2] also has the links to the working group's Bugzilla page, so you can 
see which text is still being revised (keyword: editorial indicates 
conceptual agreement as indicated in the bug, just waiting for final 
drafting).
The potentially substantive issues for which we do not have final 
consensus as of this email (but expect to _very_ soon) are:
- base URI source http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=5542
- whether or not to support barenames in SML references 
http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=5543


Best Regards, John Arwe (W3C SML wg co-chair)

[1] http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dailynews/200702/msg00004.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/XML/SML/

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