VODataService 1.3 PR

[Mark Taylor]

Markus,

On Thu, 2 Jul 2026, Markus Demleitner via registry wrote:

> A month ago I have uploaded a proposed recommendation for
> VODataService 1.3 to the document repository:
> 
> https://ivoa.net/documents/VODataService/20260601/

I made a pull request https://github.com/ivoa-std/VODataService/pull/24
with some trivial typo corrections.

I have a few other fairly minor comments:

Sec 1.2:
   "As of October 2018, there are more than 20000 resources of type
    vs:CatalogService in the VO Registry"
      - update this statistic?

Sec 2:
   The example contains a non-VOUnit-compliant unit element:

      <unit>km/sec</unit>

   I guess it would be a good idea to update this to the
   VOUnits-compliant "km/s".

   However, the unit element documentation within the vs:BaseParam type
   definition in the XSD doesn't currently say anything about VOUnits.
   Maybe it would be a good idea to reference/recommend/require
   VOUnit compliance here?  For comparison, VOTable has said since
   version 1.5 that unit attribute syntax SHOULD conform to VOUnits.

Sec 3.3.1:
   "all table names within a schema element must be unique"

   IIUC this is not a strong enough requirement, at least for
   TAP-accessible tables.  Sec 3.3 says:

      "When the table set describes a set of TAP-accessible tables,
       the value of a table's name child must be in a form immediately
       usable for use in ADQL or SQL queries."

   That means in ADQL no schema qualification on top of the declared
   table name is used when referencing a table, so to avoid ambiguity
   then all table names in the tableset, not just within each schema,
   have to be unique.

   If this is updated, the xs:unique constraint on vs:TableSet in the
   XSD should also be updated.

Sec 2.2.2:
    The text says concerning vs:StandardSTD and vs:DataCollection:

       "If all such records have disappeared from the VO by version 1.4
        of this specification, their type declarations may be removed
        from the schema."

    However the xs:documentation for the StandardSTC type in the XSD says:

       "This resource type is deprecated, and no resource records
        of this type exist in the Registry.  It will be removed
        in version 1.3 of VODataService."

   So either remove StandardSTC now, or otherwise update the
   documentation in one or both places for consistency.


Mark

--
Mark Taylor  Astronomical Programmer  Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bristol.ac.uk          https://www.star.bristol.ac.uk/mbt/