Martin,
Thank you for publishing this list. I was wondering about adding three
additional types:
The first type is currency, which would require a combination of a decimal
and a monetary unit. Conceivably, one would want to specify a time as well,
since exchange rates are dynamic (in the sense of 'time dependent'). This
could be useful in catalogs which displays prices in local currency.
The second type would be something like 'unit of measure', which would a
quantity like 'kilogram', 'Joule', Newton-meter', 'foot-pound', 'square
inch' and so forth. The goal would be to have a computer recognize that
inches and meters are both units of length, but that feet and Newtons are
not dimensionally the same. Fundamentally, it would be useful to recognize
that physical measures can be traced back to a few dimensional types
(length, time, mass, electrical charge and temperature make up a useful set)
and products of these basic types.(area = length^2, energy = mass *
length^2/ time^2, etc.) This would allow one to automatically convert units
to the user's preferred system (Imperial for American non-scientists) and SI
for everyone else :^)
This leads directly to the third type which would be something like
'measurement', which would be a quantity (a decimal or floating point
number) and a unit of measure. An important facet of a measurement is the
uncertainly, which could be expressed as a range, or in more advanced
applications (in science, engineering and quality management for example) by
a probability distribution. A standard language for this facet would be
useful, but probably quite complex.
With these additions, one would have a powerful set of tools to describe
physical objects and their attributes. This is a bit different direction
that your original list, so I don't know if it is relevant to your goals.
Still b2b communications will often have to specify weights and measures,
and these follow some fundamental rules that computers can consistently
apply. I anyone thinks this would be useful and would like help
implementing, I am willing to help. I'm not sure how one goes about
starting such a standard, but the others on this forum may have a better
idea about that.
Robert Folkerts
-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Bryan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 10:43 AM
To: XML/EDI
Subject: Summary of XML Datatypes as required for B2B applications
As part of the CEN/ISSS work on Defining and Managing Semantics and
Datatypes (DAMSAD) I have produced a draft summary of those parts of the XML
Schema datatypes likely to be immediately relevant to the B2B community. You
will find this on my website at
http://www.sgml.u-net.com/schema-datatypes.doc
Suggestions for "missing components" and/or notes re errors,
misintepretations, better examples, etc, would be much appreciated.
Martin Bryan
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