Problems about the Spectrum Data Model from the view of a Web Service programmer

[Guy Rixon]

Gerard,

yes, I agree: let's try not to mix text and element children of elements, even
though SOAP 1.2 allows it. However, I don't see why we shouldn't have
attribute
and element children of the same element.

BTW: if we are discussing SOAP specifically, then this discussion is on the
wrong mailing list: should really be on grid at ivoa.net.  If there does turn out
to be a need to ban a mix of attribute and element children, then it should
appear in the IVOA basic profile for SOAP which is a GWS thing.

On Fri, 15 Sep 2006, Gerard wrote:

> >
> > I.e. any mix of text, attribute and element content is allowed. Which SOAP
> > standard are you looking at?
> >
> > If you meant that mixes of element and attribute children are not allowed
> > in
> > rpc/encoded style (I don't know whether this is true), then let's not
> > worry
> > about that, because rpc/encoded is deprecated (in the WS-I basic profile
> > and
> > therefore in the IVOA Basic Profile for SOAP) and we shouldn't use it.
> >
> > If you meant that .NET doesn't support mixed content, then we can consider
> > accomodating such a broken toolkit (as we do by using "wrapped"
> > document/literal in other services), but it's not obvious that we should
> > do
> > so.
> >
> > If you meant that the WS-I basic profile has a ruling against mixed
> > content,
> > then we should take that seriously.
> >
> I think irrespective of this, we might in the IVOA attempt to not use mixed
> content in serialisations of data and metadata simply beacues of examples as
> Alasdair mentions. We can do without and it will be much simpler to
> transform between different representations (code, databasesof a given
> underlying model if every data element is explcitily named.
>
> Mixed content will allow things that are hard to make sense of in an
> automated fashion, like
>
> <tag1>34<tag2>35</tag2>36<tag3>hello</tag3>76</tag1>
>
> Such mixed content is fine fore (X)HTML documents, but imho should be
> avoided if possible for serialisations that are to be read by machines.
> Let's try to be as explicit as possible please.
>
> Gerard
> > Please clarify.
> >
> > Guy Rixon 				        gtr at ast.cam.ac.uk
> > Institute of Astronomy   	                Tel: +44-1223-337542
> > Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK, CB3 0HA		Fax: +44-1223-337523
>

Guy Rixon 				        gtr at ast.cam.ac.uk
Institute of Astronomy   	                Tel: +44-1223-337542
Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK, CB3 0HA		Fax: +44-1223-337523