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This is an old revision of XDMSerialize made by DavidLee on 2012-07-28 18:06:05.
 

XDM Text Serialization


NOTE: This page is currently a work in progress, it is not complete and is available currently for collaboration purposes only.

A proposal for text serialization of XDM for purposes of data interchange and interoperability.

Abstract

The XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM) references a Serialization format for XDM. This format was intended to serialize either full XML Documents, or Parsed External Entities. If given arbitrary XDM, the result can not be reconstructed into the original XDM. In particular, for purposes of data interchange, the losses are severe; sequences are "normalized" into a single rooted XML tree, adjacent atomic values are concatenated and type information is discarded.

This proposal is to define a common format for serializing XDM data for purposes of data interchange and interoperability preserving more of the XDM information.

Intent

The intent of this specification is to provide a common format for interchange of data between XML tools which produce and consume XDM data. Examples of XML tools which produce or consume XDM data include XPath (2.0), XSLT , XQuery, but also include other tools such as XProc, xmlsh and countless custom written programs using the XDM data model.

In current implementations there is no standard model for XDM data either within the same environment and language, or across languages and environements. For example, suppose an XQuery operation produces a sequence and it is desired to provide that sequence as a parameter to XSLT transformation, there is no standardized way to exchange the data. In practice in order to accomplish this, either the same vendor tools must be used within the same language and process, or the results must be serialized in a proprietary format and reconstituted in the target using the same proprietary format. Even with the same vendors implementations interchange is not always easy due to differences in internal data formats , languages, or transferring data across process or machine boundaries.

The existing text serialization for XDM proposal XDM is inadequate for data interchange.

These and other limitations make the existing XDM serialization proposal unsuitable for data interchange.
This proposal provides for a standard serialization format so that XDM data can be interchanged across tools, vendors, languages, environments and machines while maintaining most of the original XDM information.

Definitions

For the purposes of this document the following definitions apply

Goals


This proposal expresses multiple goals, not all of which may be possible to achieve. The use cases describe concrete examples of many of the goals, while this summary provides the intent.


Some purposes for which this format could be used include

XDM Information Preserved and Lost


Preserving all of the information in the XDM is very difficult, and likely why a serialization model for XDM has not been specified. This proposal recognizes that not all XDM information is equally important. In the context of the Use Cases, and with the goals of reasonable implementation with existing vendor libraries this proposal aims at preserving some XDM information at the expense of others.

XDM Information preserved

The XDM Model defines values as a sequence of zero or more items. Each item is one of the following types

Each type has a value. Atomic types have string values, and node types have XML values.

An XDM serialization format should preserve the following attributes



XDM Information NOT preserved



Use Cases


Use cases are concrete examples that demonstrate the goals.


Serialization Format

The serialization format is described in terms of a stream of unicode characters (not bytes). The conversion to and from bytes to characters is an Encoding property. In memory representations likely need no encoding. File formats should be stored in UTF-8 format with no leading Byte Order Marker (BOM).

Serialization Format Properties

The Goals and Use Cases provide rationale for which the desired properties of a serialization format can be derived.



Abstract Form


The Serialization Format Properties suggest a possible Abstract Form comprised of a sequence of zero 0r more of the following markup. (where "+" means one or more and "*" means zero or more).

START WHITESPACE+ KIND WHITESPACE+ ITEM WHITESPACE*
The empty sequence being represented by an empty stream.



START

The START marker is a character sequence which represents the beginning of a single XDM Item. This sequence is not allowed to occur anywhere else in the XDM stream. This allows an XDM Consumer to perform some kinds of processing of XDM streams without having to parse the ITEM values. For example, a large XDM stream can be split into multiple streams with only needing to recognize a single character sequence.

WHITESPACE

WHITESPACE is any whitespace character (space, tab , CR , NL). Normalization of CR/NL sequences to NL is not required outside of ITEM serialization (as is in XML serialization) because in the production syntax wherever WHITESPACE occurs it, multiple adjacent occurances have the same meaning so it is not necessary to distinguish CR/NL from NL.

KIND

KIND is a character sequence which identifies the 8 XDM item kinds, seven types of XDM nodes [document, element, attribute, text, namespace, processing instruction, and comment), and atomic types.

ITEM

ITEM is the serialized form of a single XDM item. (see Item Serialization)

Item Serialization

Each of the 8 XDM kinds (7 node types and atomic types) are serialized into character sequences as follows.

document node

Document nodes start with <?xml?> and serialized as specified in XML Output

element node

Element nodes are serialized as specified in XML Output


attribute node

Attribute nodes are serialized as
['{' namespace uri '}'] [ prefix ] ':' name WHITESPACE value

  • If there is no namespace uri then it is omitted
  • If there is no prefix then it is omitted
  • "value" is the value of the attribute, quoted as per the specifications of XML Serialization [TBD where is attribute serialzaiton defined ? ]

  • Example


    text node

    Text nodes are serialized as quoted strings [TBD define quoting mechanism, is it the same as the attribute values ?]

    Example:
    "Some text in a text node"


    namespace node

    TBD: support for namespace nodes optional ? I cannot create or generte a namespace node in XQuery even though it is part of XDM.


    processing instruction node

    Processing instructions are serialized identically to the XML Serialization. [ TBD Reference to PI serialization spec]
    Example
    <?This is a processing instruction?>

    comment nodes

    Comment nodes are serialized identically to the XML Serialization for comments. [TBD Reference to comment serialization spec]

    Example
    <!-- This is a comment -->

    atomic values

    Atomic values are serialized in the following form
    [ '{' type uri '}' ] prefix ':' typename WHITESPACE value

  • For XML Schema built-in types no "type uri" is required
  • For user defined types a 'type uri' is required
  • Prefix is required. The "xs" prefix is predeclared to be "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  • "value" is the string representation of the atomic value as defined by http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions/#casting as if casted to "xs:string". The resulting value is then quoted. [ TBD reference to quoting spec]

  • function items

    Functions are not serialized





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