[eml-dev] EML 2.0.2 changes to text leaf nodes

[James Brunt]

I've wrestled with this issue for a good while. My experience has been 
primarily with bibliographic database entries in which this is a raging 
problem. It comes down to the question, Can you express complex text in 
a limited character set with no formatting? And unfortunately I see both 
sides. Philosophically I prefer to keep things simple and decouple 
formatting from text but practically how can you deal with things like 
C00 and species names in titles that are indicated in practice by 
formatting. This is made more complex by the fact that you are trying to 
represent a title that is fixed in the annals of history by something 
that doesn't look at all like it.

So I guess I'm in favor of the change for <title> elements but I'm not 
sure about the implications of changing all xs:string types. Others will 
have to decide.

Also, I'm in agreement with Inigo that making the schema "clean" should 
be a priority in this bug-fix release.

James

James W. Brunt
Associate Director for Information Management
Long Term Ecological Research Network Office
Department of Biology MSC03 2020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
505 277 2535
jbrunt at LTERnet.edu


Christopher Jones wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Margaret and I were discussing changes to EML slated for the 2.0.2  
> bugfix release, and a frequent request that I have seen involves  
> elements that are xs:string leaf nodes throughout the schema.  There  
> are places within the EML schema that we consciously decided to type  
> the leaf node as an eml-text node (txt:TextType) in order to provide  
> DocBook-type formatting capabilities.  However, there have been many  
> requests for formatting options in text leaf node elements where it is  
> not allowed.
> 
> The proposal is to convert all leaf nodes in the EML schema that are  
> currently typed as xs:string to be of type txt:TextType so they may  
> all take advantage of the formatting options.
> 
> A required change in eml-text.xsd is:
> 
> <ComplexType name="TextType"> becomes <ComplexType name="TextType"  
> mixed="true">
> 
> An example would be:
> 
> EML 2.0.1 title element:
> <xs:element name="title" type="xs:string" maxOccurs="unbounded">
> 
> EML 2.0.2 proposed title element:
> <xs:element name="title" type="txt:TextType" maxOccurs="unbounded">
> 
> 
> This would allow for backwards compatible markup such as:
> <eml>
>    <dataset>
>      <title>My Title Text</title>
>      ...
>    </dataset>
> </eml>
> 
> and also:
> 
> <eml>
>    <dataset>
>      <title><emphasis>My Title Text</emphasis></title>
>      ...
>    </dataset>
> </eml>
> 
> This change should be backward compatible with EML 2.0.1 in that an  
> element of type txt:TextType can take a plain xs:string without any  
> other markup.
> 
> So, we wanted to open this type of change up to the community for  
> comment since it would affect all of the text nodes in the EML schema,  
> even though the changes aren't immense.
> 
> Can anyone see downsides to this type of change?
> 
> Other comments?
> 
> Cheers,
> Chris
> _________________________________________________________________
> christopher jones       cjones at msi.ucsb.edu      (805) 680-5946
> marine science institute  university of california, santa barbara
> _________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> 
> 
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