iLingo - The Language of Insurance e-Business
(C) 1999 Lexica, LLC
3.2.6. Containers and Optionality
In general, the following rules were used in designing the schemas
with respect to container elements and optionality:
- For sets of elements, a container representing that set is
preferred. For example, there is a
people element that contains
person.ref elements in the consumer account schema.
- If a set of elements is optional, a required container element
with optional children is preferred over an optional container element with
required children. That is, A with a model of B* is preferred over A? with a
model of B+.
- Enforcement of when something is required from a business
perspective is an arbitrary decision. Therefore, the schemas only enforce what
is necessary for integrity of the framework and not the integrity of the data.
The checking of data integrity is a necessary second step, part of which can be
accomplished with more restrictive schemas. This allows systems to collect and
store information legally at
any stage in the process.
- Optional elements should be at the end of the content
models.