iLingo - The Language of Insurance e-Business

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3.2.4. Links and Multiple Documents

The iLingo design uses simple one-way links to associate one document to another. This allows the schemas to be focused on a consistent subject while existing within an abstract framework. That is, for example, a person schema can focus on modeling information about a person and another schema can point to instances of that schema to associate other data or transactions with that person.

When a simple link is encoded, it is of one of three categories:

  1. A location link whose presence on an element is one of the main purposes for the element. For example, the person.ref element in the consumer account schema. This is represented by the presence of an href attribute of type URI. In this case, the URI value is meant to be a location of the target.
  2. A location link whose presence on an element augments or associates the targeted object but is not the main purpose of the element. For example, the quote.result.href attribute of the auto scenario schema. This is represented by a "role" or "identifier" suffixed by a href name with a type of URI. In this case, the URI value is meant to be a location of the target.
  3. A name link whose presence on an element is one of the main purposes for the element. It identifies a target object but the value of the link is not a location. For example, the ref attribute on the auxiliary.driver element of the auto scenario schema is the URI value used in the auto line of business which uniquely identifies the driver who plays this role. This is represented by a ref attribute of type URI. The URI value does not represent a location but rather a name which must be resolved to a location.
  4. A name link whose presence on an element augments or associates the targeted object but is not the main purposes for the element. It identifies a target object but the value of the link is not a location. For example, the vehicle.ref attribute on the vehicle.coverage element of the auto scenario schema is the URI value used in the auto line of business which uniquely identifies the vehicle being covered by the scenario. This is represented by a "role" or "identifier" suffixed by a ref name with a type of URI. The URI value does not represent a location but rather a name which must be resolved to a location.