ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC34 N0241

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC34

Information Technology --

Document Description and Processing Languages

Topic map foundational model requirements

Initial draft submitted to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3 by Lars Marius Garshol on behalf of Norway

August 11 2001

This document contains a proposed set of requirements for the work on the foundational model for topic maps, for the consideration of the Montreal meeting of SC34. The intention is that this document should provide the starting point for an official foundational model requirements document.

The purpose of a requirements document must be to document the consensus of the community with regards to the purpose to be served by and form taken by the foundational model. In lieu of such consensus the document should represent the opinions of the editors as a starting point for reaching consensus.

Terminology

The following topic map terms will be used in this document with the meanings given below.

topic map processing

The processing of topic map information by software for any purpose whatsoever.

topic map parsing

The process of building some program-internal representation of a topic map from a topic map serialized in some format.

The following general terms will be used throughout this document with the meanings assigned to them below.

shall

Means that the requirement is absolute.

should

Means that the requirement is a goal.

may

Means that the requirement is considered important, but that it is not yet clear whether TMQL should conform to it or not.

General requirements

The main requirements on the foundational model are listed below.

1. The foundational model shall define the structure of topic maps that is represented by the various topic map syntaxes, in a way that is independent of any particular syntax.
2. The foundational model shall define all logically relevant aspects of topic map information (including all strings and locators), and it shall include no aspects that are not logically relevant.
3. The foundational model shall define the constraints that apply to all instances of the model regardless of how the instances are represented.
4. The foundational model shall be written in such a way that third parties can write specifications defining the process of building instances of the model from data sources other than the two standardized topic map syntaxes.
5. The foundational model specification shall not unduly constrain the internal aspects of topic map implementations.
6. The foundational model shall provide a suitable foundation in for the TMCL and TMQL standards.
7. The foundational model should contain prose explaining the semantics of model instances.

Topic map parsing requirements

The requirements that apply to topic map parsing are listed below.

1. The foundational model shall fully define the process of building instances of the model from XTM 1.0 documents, including all error situations and the expected behaviour of processors in the face of errors.
2. The foundational model shall fully define the process of building instances of the model from ISO 13250 documents, including all error situations and the expected behaviour of processors in the face of errors.
3. The topic map parsing specifications shall be sufficiently detailed and complete that it is possible to build an extensive suite of conformance test cases.
4. The foundational model shall fully define the process of serializing instances of the model into the XTM 1.0 syntax.
5. The foundational model should fully define the process of serializing instances of the model into the ISO 13250 syntax.

Relationship to other standards

The foundational model is a piece in a large puzzle of standards and specifications. These requirements define its role in the larger puzzle.

1. The foundational model shall be specified as part of the ISO 13250 standard.
2. The foundational model shall preserve backwards compatibility with both ISO 13250 and XTM 1.0 as far as possible.
3. The foundational model shall not modify the ISO 13250 or XTM 1.0 syntaxes in any way.