I am pleased to inform you that the W3C has acknowledged
a submission entitled "Schema for Object-oriented XML (SOX)"
which can be found at http://www.w3.org/Submission/1998/15/
The complete list of documents that are relevant to the
SOX submission are listed here for you convenience:
1) Schema for Object-oriented XML (SOX) Specification
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/
2) Core XML DTD for SOX
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/schema.dtd
3) HTML Text DTD
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/htmltext.ent
4) Core schema for SOX
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/schema.sox
5) HTML Text schema module
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/htmltext.mod
6) Typedefs schema module
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-SOX/typedefs.mod
Abstract
Automated processing of business documents in large-scale
electronic commerce environments requires rigorous definition
of the document structure, content and semantics to enable
efficient software development processes for distributed applications.
XML offers the Document Type Definition (DTD) as a formalism for
defining the syntax and structure of XML documents. However, experience
has shown that XML DTDs are not sufficient to specify content or semantics.
Moreover, the fact that XML DTD syntax is incompatible with XML document
syntax increases the complexity of supporting interoperation among
heterogenous applications. Therefore, a schema facility is required to
enable XML validation and higher levels of automated content checking by
facilitating software mapping of XML data structures, supporting the
generation of common application components, and enabling reuse at the
document design and the application programming levels.
This submission proposes a schema facility, "Schema for Object-oriented
XML (SOX)", for defining the structure, content and semantics of XML
documents to enable XML validation and higher levels of automated
content checking. XML Schema provides an alternative to XML DTDs for
modeling markup relationships to enable more efficient software
development processes for distributed applications. SOX also provides
basic intrinsic datatypes, an extensible datatyping mechanism,
content model and attribute interface inheritance, a powerful namespace
mechanism, and embedded documentation. As compared to XML DTDs, SOX
dramatically decreases the complexity of supporting interoperation among
heterogenous applications by facilitating software mapping of XML data structures, expressing domain abstractions and common relationships
directly and explicitly, enabling reuse at the document design and the
application programming levels, and supporting the generation of common
application components
SOX documents can be operated on by a SOX processor to produce many
different types of output targets. Transformation of SOX documents
will yield XML DTDs and object-oriented language classes to facilitate
the development of intelligent applications, such as those needed to
perform electronic commerce, for example. Other output targets of SOX
include documentation derived from the documentation-based elements in
SOX itself, and user interface components. Further output targets are
yet to be defined, but the inherent flexibility of SOX allows for many
other options.
The SOX proposal is informed by the XML 1.0 specification as well as
the XML-Data submission, the Document Content Description submission
and the EXPRESS language reference manual (ISO 10303-11). A SOX document,
or schema, is a valid XML document instance according to the SOX DTD,
that represents a complete XML DTD-like structure. It has a document
root element, and a representation of syntax that one would expect from
a complete DTD, symbolically generated through the XML document instance.
Regards,
Murray Maloney