Re: Questions regarding the WBEM/CIM XSDs

I am not aware of any way that a XSD hierarchy can describe an association.
An association is a relation, as in a relational database, between 2 other 
objects.
A relation contains instances of 2 other objects, but does not have to exist and 
is not part of either one.
For an XSD to describe a relation, it would have to not have a hierarchical 
description, but maybe I just don't use XSDs that way.

 Kirk & Trish Augustin
11821 NW McNamee Rd
Portland, OR 97231




________________________________
From: J B <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wed, October 6, 2010 10:07:39 AM
Subject: Questions regarding the WBEM/CIM XSDs

In looking over the the WBEM/CIM XSDs, I am puzzled by the use of
associations.  As an example, let's take CIM_ComputerSystem and
CIM_OperatingSystem.  According to the MOFs, there is an explicit
association of InstalledOS(0..*) and RunningOS(1..1).  I would have
expected some element in one of the above XSDs to explicitly call out
this association, but instead, I see two other XSDs, CIM_InstalledOS
and CIM_RunningOS.  I am assuming that the GroupComponent and
PartComponent refer to CIM_ComputerSystem and CIM_OperatingSystem,
respectively since they are of type cim:cimReference.  But without the
benefit of having the MOF and UML diagrams available to me, how in the
world would I know this association exists?  I would have expected
that the XSDs and the MOFs would ultimately describe the same model,
but it does not appear that way.  What exactly would be the value of
the cim:cimReference element?

So if the above is actually correct, can anyone provide me with a
sample XML instance document that shows how to actually tie a
CIM_ComputerSystem instance document to a CIM_OperatingSystem instance
document together?

Thanks!
James Birchfield