UBL Naming and Design Rules SC

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Removing use of "-" in element and type names

  • 1.  Removing use of "-" in element and type names

    Posted 05-16-2003 02:04
    Is it possible for NDR to rule for removing the use of hyphens
    "-" in element and type names?
    
    A bit of trial experience with transforming UBL schema element
    names and types to Java classes revealed that the existence
    of hyphens in element names and types introduces programming
    decisions to "deal with" the hyphens.  
    
    As you know, hyphens are not acceptable as variable or type 
    names in Java (or for that matter, C, Perl and most programming
    languages) though they are fine as XML names.  During the
    transformation, developer will need to make a decision of
    how to map the hyphens into the programming language's 
    name space.  For e.g., map "-" to nothing (squeezing the
    hyphens out), map "-" to underscore "_", or mapping it to
    some other infrequently used string combinations.
    
    For instance, "CountrySub-Entity" may be mapped in various
    ways into:
       CountrySubEntity
       CountrySub_Entity
       CountrySub_____Entity
       ...
    
    There aren't too many names with hyphens, fortunately.
    However, these create exceptions that will require documentation.
    Such requirement will not be necessary if NDR could rule to
    not use hyphens.
    
    Thanks.
    
    
    
    Best Regards,
    Chin Chee-Kai
    SoftML
    Tel: +65-6820-2979
    Fax: +65-6743-7875
    Email: cheekai@SoftML.Net
    http://SoftML.Net/