Re: PROPOSAL (round 2): Extensions to MDR XMI API

Martin Matula wrote:
>> 3. How are document URI's to be compared? Are they just compared by
>> String.equals(), or is any URI canonicalization done?
> 
> What canonicalization do you mean?

Now that I think about it, canonicalization would be probably way to 
complicated. For an explanation of what I meant, please see the 
definition of URI equality given at: 
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/java/net/URI.html#equals(java.lang.Object)

>> 9. Shouldn't XMIWriter.getObjects() be in OutputTarget? Otherwise, I 
>> wouldn't be able to use the same XMIWriter to write multiple 
>> documents. 

Okay, you said you are likely to get rid of OutputTarget. But I am still 
wondering about what getObjects() is for. Why did you want getObjects() 
to be a property, instead of a parameter to the write() method like was 
done for JMI? I can kind of understand the XMI version being a property, 
but I wonder if the benefit is worth being inconsistent with JMI. It 
seems like you could make the write methods like this:

void write(org.xml.sax.ContentHandler handler, Collection objects,
           String xmiVersion);
void write(org.xml.sax.ContentHandler handler, RefPackage extent,
            String xmiVersion);

This would make the MDR API very similar to the JMI XmiWriter API. And 
also, I can better see how I could reuse an XMIWriter instance to write 
multiple documents with different collections of objects. Also, it seems 
like XMIWriters could then implement XmiWriter too. Similar comments 
apply to XMIReader.

>> 12. I am confused about OutputTarget.getSystemId(). Is this the same 
>> as XMIReference.getDocumentURI()? What is the difference? Similarly, 
> 
> Again - it was taken from InputSource. SystemId is InputSources name for 
> URI I guess, so yes, systemID is identical to documentURI.

Perhaps then XMIReference.getDocumentURI() should be renamed to 
getSystemId() for consistency's sake. I wasn't taking consistency with 
JAXP and SAX into consideration when I suggested the getDocumentURI() 
method.

- Brian