[oXygen-user] Schematron validation "errors" enhancement

[Wendell Piez]

Hi,

Currently, Schematron is regarded by oXygen as a validation 
technology, and it uses many of the same interfaces as XSD, RNG and 
DTD, including having its results reported in a validation results window.

This is fine, but additionally, a distinction is made between 
Schematron messages emitted by Schematron 'assert' elements and those 
emitted by 'report' elements; the latter are classed as warnings, not 
errors. They are formatted differently, with a yellow icon instead of 
a red one, plus the word "warning".

However, in my experience working with Schematron, more often than 
not this distinction does not hold. "Errors" or "warnings" or simple 
"alerts" or messages of any status whatever can be the results of 
either a Schematron 'assert' or 'report'; that is, which Schematron 
element is used to generate a message has nothing to do with the 
severity of the condition being reported. Or even whether it's good 
or bad: sometimes the message emitted by either an 'assert' or 
'report' represents not failure but success.

I wonder if in oXygen, this distinction could be removed, and the 
results of all Schematron assertions (both 'assert' and 'report', i.e 
"positive and negative assertions of a constraint") could be 
represented the same.

If you really wanted to get fancy, the status of a Schematron message 
in oXygen might be configurable. Maybe the assignment of "error" or 
"warning" (or whatever else: blue or green icons?) could be made on 
the basis of a regular expression matching the message. It's pretty 
common practice for Schematron messages to be internally structured 
with their own language about errors, warnings, alerts, info, etc., 
with structurer error codes and the like.

The same thing applies to the inline iconography, i.e., having errors 
from 'assert' underlined in red in the editor view, while 'report' 
results are colored yellow.

For Schematron developers who are deploying oXygen as a validation 
platform for non-experts -- who are sometimes prone to be alarmed 
unnecessarily by iconography -- it would be really nice to be able to 
control this.

If not, I think oXygen might at least be neutral on the question of 
which Schematron messages are at which level of severity.

What do you think?

Cheers,
Wendell



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Wendell Piez                            mailto:
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
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