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Re: new version of inventory catalog XML



Hi John:

In the Annotated Example...

  * Please include something in here for collections of image data access via
ADDE and DODS - it looks like all the examples are for grids from NetCDF files
via DODS(?).  Note that whereas the DODS access points to a "file" on the
server, the ADDE access does not...instead, the data are located through 3
"names" - host, data group, and dataset.  [Even those are often insufficient to
"define" the collection of data.  Other elements, like spectral channel(s) may
also be needed (separate from "name").]
      
  * In the "nested collection" (item 4), is the important point that the parent
collection's serverID and dataType attributes are used by the children (of the
same element type) unless explicitly defined in the child's element tag?

  * I would also like to see an example of defining a collection of Point data,
as well.  

In the DTD:

  * Please add a "DataType" of TEXT as well.  I don't know about DODS servers,
but the ADDE protocol explicitly supports a data type TEXT and the server will
return an ASCII text file.  [My use of TEXT data right now is to retrieve
indexed descriptors that are used by a GUI to allow reading of image data via
ADDE.  These are not, generally, directly linked to a particular dataset, but
rather contain information like the "long names" of spectral channels, which
are otherwise encoded in the data files by an index number.]

Finally, I don't have much experience in XML, but a few things I've read
suggest that using attributes instead of elements to describe data.  Is this
one of those "religous wars" things?

tom

John Caron wrote:
> 
> A new version of the inventory catalog XML document is available for your 
> comments:
> 
>    http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/caron/thredds/InvCatalog.html
> 
> This version adds XML namespaces, renames some elements for clarity, and 
> expands
> the documentation element.

-- 
Tom Whittaker (address@hidden)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Space Science and Engineering Center
Phone/VoiceMail: 608/262-2759
Fax: 608/262-5974