[OSM-talk] Xml design

[scott]

An XSD will allow you to specify the set of possible attributes and also 
the set of possible values for an attribute (or element).  This set of 
values can be used to populate the drop down, ensuring that only valid 
values are entered.  So we can have a drop down (or some autocomplete 
box) with all  possible tag names (the current k values), of which we 
currently have around 358 (including duplicates/misspellings).  Plus we 
can have a drop down with the valid values for an attribute, so for 
highway we can have a drop down with trunk/primary/... etc. 

Obviously you could create these drop downs now, but by basing them on 
an XSD they would be data driven.


w3.org is really the definitive source for the definition of XSD.  Its 
complete but pretty dry reading.  the web tools platform for Eclipse 
contains an XSD editor, and there are other free ones out there 
depending on your choice of platform.  XmlSpy and Oxygen and probably 
the most popular commercial packages for Windows.

bvh wrote:

>On Sun, Jan 07, 2007 at 12:21:01PM +0000, scott wrote:
>  
>
>>With the current XML design of k="" v="" it would seem very difficult to 
>>create a useful XSD for the data.  A tight XSD would help to avoid 
>>duplication,spelling mistakes, reduce the xml size, and would allow for 
>>the gui to present useful drop downs.  For example we currently have
>>    
>>
>
>Maybe I should read up on XSD (any pointers) but why do we need it for
>dropdowns?
>
>cu bart
>
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