Initial Questions regarding eml documentation - reading the diagrams

[Matt Jones]

Hi Scott and Myla,

I've tried to reply to your questions about EML validation in the email 
below. Hope it is useful to you,

Matt

scott.chapal at jonesctr.org wrote:
> eml-dev:
> 
> I'm forwarding these questions are regarding the beta9 documentation.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> -Scott Chapal
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Subject:
> Initial Questions regarding eml documentation - reading the diagrams
> From:
> Myla Jordan <mjordan at spock.jonesctr.org>
> Date:
> Wed, 31 Jul 2002 10:21:11 -0400 (EDT)
> To:
> schapal at spock.jonesctr.org
> 
> 
> Looking over the eml documentation:
> 
> What elements are required?  Looking at the diagrams, I see elements
> are surrounded by either a broken or unbroken line.  Is this
> significant and if so then what is the significance?  My first guess
> was that it indicated whether a element was required, but that doesn't
> always seem to be the case.


The diagrams in the documentation are from XML spy.  Dashed lines mean 
that an element is optional, solid lines mean it is required. 
Repeatable elements are indicated with a "stacked" box on top of 
another, which can be either solid or dashed.  The cardinality is also 
indicated as 0..infinity OR 1..infinity if it is repeatable.

> Does the position of an element within the document matter?  For
> example, a document with the elements in the following order:
> entityName, entityDescription, orientation, caseSensitive,
> numberOfRecords, attributeList is invalid but entityName,
> entityDescription, attributeList, orientation, caseSensitive,
> numberOfRecords is valid.  Why?  All listed elements live directly
> under the dataTable element.

Yes, order of elements is critical, and elements out-of-order will not 
validate.

> 
> Other
> 
> eml-party: Example: <phone phonetype="voice">805-555-2500</phone>
> creates an invalid element - should be <phone>805-555-2500</phone>

Actually, the schema should allow an optional attribute of "phonetype", 
so I think the example is correct.  I'll have to look into this in more 
detail to figure out what is wrong and why it won't validate for you. 
Which validator are you using?

> eml-coverage: boundingCoordinates is not an accepted element. Message:
> tag name "boundingCoordinates" is not allowed. Possible tag names are:
> <geographicDescription>,<references>

I think this is the order of elements issue again.  your first element 
has to be either geographicDescription or references.

Hope this is helpful.

Matt

-- 
*******************************************************************
Matt Jones                                    jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Fax: 425-920-2439   Ph: 907-789-0496
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)

Interested in ecological informatics? http://www.ecoinformatics.org
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