[Nml-wg] XML syntax for NML relations

[Jeroen van der Ham]

Hi all,

I've discussed with Freek yesterday, and I think the main issue here is that there are different positions regarding validation and parsing of XML files.

Jason has the position of a programmer using some XML library to parse XML files, create objects and general data out of it. The idea is that you take an XML file handed to the program, process it and make the best of it. There is no explicit validation.
This seems reasonably similar to how browsers process HTML files for example. 

Freek on the other hand was thinking of how XML is handled in the SOAP/WSDL/Webservices world. There you have strict typing, explicit validation, code generation, et cetera.
Everything has to adhere to reasonably strict schemas, otherwise most WS stacks refuse to work.

While I understand that most of the NML files for monitoring will be processed by PerfSONAR and similar tools, I would prefer that the eventual schema would also be useful for WSDL style operations. I know that the datatypes used there are reasonably strict, does anyone know whether the current proposed XML schema is compatible with that context as well?

Jeroen.