Specifying Namespaces for Elements and Attributes

Namespace Refresher

The general assumption in this book is that the reader is familiar with XML. It may be worthwhile, however, to review how to determine the namespace, if any, to which an element or attribute is assigned in an XML document.

First, unless the XML document includes a default namespace or a namespace prefix for every element and attribute that it includes, it is necessary to see the corresponding XML schema. Apart from any imported elements or attributes, any element or attribute is one of the following:

• Qualified, which means that the element or attribute is in the target namespace of the schema.

• Unqualified, which has different meaning for elements and attributes. An unqualified element is in no namespace. An unqualified attribute is in the default namespace, if any, of its containing element.

For each element and attribute that it defines, a schema indicates whether that item is qualified or unqualified. The schema does this by a combination of the following pieces:

• The <schema> element can specify the elementFormDefault and attributeFormDefault attributes. This controls the default namespace assignment of any elements and attributes in the schema. The possible values are "qualified" and "unqualified".

  These attributes are optional. The default for both of them is "unqualified". That is, by default if a element or attribute is used without a prefix, it is in no namespace.

• Second, the definition of an element or attribute can specify the form attribute, which indicates how that item is assigned to a namespace. The possible values are "qualified" and "unqualified".

Consider the following XML document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ClassA xmlns="mynamespace" xmlns:s01="mynamespace" s01:String1="abcdef">
  <s01:ClassB xmlns="">
    <String3>qrstuv</String3>
    <String4>wxyz</String4>
  </s01:ClassB>
  <String2>ghijkl</String2>
</ClassA>

For simplicity, we assume that the corresponding schema document uses the default values of elementFormDefault and attributeFormDefault, and does not specify the form attribute for any items it defines. Then the items in this document are in namespaces as follows:

• The <ClassA> element is in mynamespace, because of two items:

  • That is the namespace given by the default namespace declaration for this element and its immediate children (xmlns="mynamespace").

  • The <ClassA> element does not have a namespace prefix that would indicate some other namespace.

• The String1 attribute is in mynamespace, because this attribute uses the s01 prefix, and the xmlns:s01 namespace declaration indicates that the s01 refers to the mynamespace namespace.

  Because the schema uses the default for attributeFormDefault ("unqualified"), the String1 attribute would be in mynamespace even if it did not use a namespace prefix.

• The <ClassB> element is in mynamespace, because this attribute uses the s01 prefix.

• The <String3> and <String4> elements are not in any namespace, because of two items:

  • The namespace declaration for the parent element indicates that the default namespace here is null (xmlns="").

  • These elements do not have a namespace prefix that would indicate some other namespace.

• The element <String2> is the namespace mynamespace, because that is the default namespace specified in its parent element.

XML Namespaces and Classes

In Caché XML support, you specify namespaces on a class-by-class basis. You use the NAMESPACE class parameter to specify the namespace for instances of that class, as well as its immediate child objects. Also, you use the ELEMENTQUALIFIED and ATTRIBUTEQUALIFIED parameters to specify whether properties of its object-valued properties are global (and belong to the same namespace as the parent) or local.

Namespaces and Context

Particularly with namespaces, it is important to remember that an XML-enabled object is handled differently depending on the context. For example, if you export an Address object at the top level, it is a global element. If you export a Person object that includes a reference to an Address object, then Address is a local element (as are all other properties of Person). Global and local elements are assigned to namespaces differently.

Case 1: Property Is Treated as Local Element

If you import or export an XML-enabled object at the top level, any property that is projected as an element becomes a local element by default. There are two possible namespace assignments for these local elements:

• If the ELEMENTQUALIFIED class parameter is 1 for the parent class, the local elements are qualified, and they are explicitly included in namespace of their parent element.

  

• If the ELEMENTQUALIFIED class parameter is 0 for the parent class, the local elements are unqualified, and they do not belong to any namespace. (You can, however, specify a namespace during export. See “Writing XML Output from Caché Objects” in Using Caché XML Tools.)

  

Notice that in both cases, the namespace in the child class is ignored.

Case 2: Property Is Treated as Global Element

You can make a property into a global element and assign it to a namespace. To do so, you set the XMLREF property parameter to 1. The following describes how the corresponding element is assigned to a namespace:

1. If the REFNAMESPACE property parameter is specified, the element is in that namespace.

   

2. Otherwise the element is assigned to a namespace as follows:

   1. If the property is a type and specifies the XSDTYPE class parameter, the element is in the namespace of the parent class.

   2. Otherwise, if the property class defines the NAMESPACE class parameter, the element is in the namespace of the property class.

   3. If the property class does not define either of these class parameters, the element is in no namespace.