Author: G. Ken Holman
Date: $Date: 2003/02/14 04:19:33 $(UTC)
Copyright © 2003 OASIS
| 1 | Formatting specifications for UBL document types |
| 2 | Documentation conventions |
| 2.1 | Example form field information item documentation |
| 3 | Example implementations |
| 4 | Feedback |
| 5 | Acknowledgements |
This collection contains examples of formatting specifications and "stylesheets" that can be used to display instances of Universal Business Language (UBL) document types in human-readable form. Presentational semantics have not been formalized in this version of the UBL schema library, and they may never be formalized due to differing international requirements and conventions for the presentation of information found in business documents.
These specifications must not be considered as reference implementations of UBL or as normative components of the UBL specification; they are merely examples from one of what will probably be many available UBL stylesheet libraries.
The formatting specifications referenced below point to various layouts for the presentation of the information found in UBL instances. Some layouts are simplified presentations. Some layouts are intended to conform to the UN Layout Key for printed business documents, mimicking the intent of the UN Layout Key where official layouts do not currently exist.
The following collection of formatting specifications describes candidate renderings for the following UBL document types:
The following is an example of the documentation found in a formatting specification for a given field of a form on the rendered output.
| Path |
| /po:Order/cat:BuyerParty/cat:Address/cat:Street |
| /po:Order/cat:BuyerParty/cat:Address/cat:Country/@countryId |
The box above includes two fictitious XML Path Language (XPath) addresses that documents the locations of information found in an XML instance. XPath addresses are used in XSLT stylesheets but can be used as above just for documentation because they are independent of the technology being used for transformation. The path is the route from the document element (the first step in the path) through to the information item actually being displayed.
In the first of the two examples above, the item being addressed is the cat:Street element that is a child of the cat:Address element. In the second of the two examples, the item being addressed is the countryId attribute of the cat:Country element.
The documented sections of the formatting specifications are oriented in the order of the fields found in the rendered result, approximately in the order of left to right from top to bottom (with some differences to accommodate logical groupings).
The formatting specifications are meant to be transformation technology agnostic. The specifications indicate what information goes where in the result, not how it gets there. Different implementations of transformation technologies can meet the need for the information found at the specified XPath address to appear at the specified location on the page.
These implementations must not be considered as reference implementations of UBL formatting specifications or as normative components of the UBL delivery; they are merely examples from what will probably be many available UBL stylesheet libraries.
XSLT and XSL-FO stylesheets in clear text from Crane Softwrights Ltd.:
release version: crane-ublss-20030214-0410.zip
latest version: http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/links/res-ublo.htm
Java JAR standalone implementation of Crane's XSLT and XSL-FO stylesheets from Ambrosoft, Inc.:
release version: ambrosoft-crane-ublss-20030214-0420.zip
latest version: http://www.ambrosoft.com
The UBL committees need your help. We need feedback on the form layouts themselves and on the XPath addresses for information that belongs in the form.
If you have any input to these formatting specifications, please do not hesitate to contact the UBL committees following the directions on the home page cited above.
These formatting specifications were started through the combined efforts of Sue Probert regarding the layout rules using the SITPRO layouts as a guide (with their gracious permission) for UN and UN-like presentations, Tim McGrath regarding early test data and cross reference tables, Jean McInerney and Mike Adcock regarding the business rules and mappings to UBL constructs, and G. Ken Holman regarding the XSLT and XSL-FO stylesheet requirements and the building of the library suite.
All output examples are produced using Crane Softwrights Ltd.'s XSLT and XSL-FO stylesheets. The HTML and XSL-FO are created by running the Saxon XSLT processor http://saxon.sourceforge.net/. The PDF is created by running the Antenna House XSL Formatter Version 2.3 http://www.AntennaHouse.com (with their gracious permission) to produce PostScript from XSL-FO and GhostScript AFPL http://www.GhostScript.com to distill PDF from the PostScript.
Formatting specifications for UBL document types
G. Ken Holman
Copyright © 2003 OASIS
$Date: 2003/02/14 04:19:33 $(UTC)