Boston, MA, USA; March 13, 2001 - OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, announced the formation of a new technical committee to create a specification for validating XML documents with TREX (Tree Regular Expressions for XML). Using XML syntax, TREX extends the concept of regular expressions (familiar to many Web developers) to XML structures.

TREX is the latest in a long list of accomplishments by James Clark, widely regarded as one of the most prolific contributors to the field of structured information standards. Clark served as technical lead for the W3C's XML 1.0 Recommendation and editor of the W3C Recommendations for both XPath and XSLT. He is perhaps best known as the author of open-source parsers including expat and XP for XML and sgmls and SP for SGML.

"There is a genuine need for a straightforward, easy-to-learn XML schema language, and TREX delivers that," said James Clark, who will serve as chair of the OASIS TREX Technical Committee. "I am excited to be developing the TREX specification within OASIS. The OASIS technical process is both open and lightweight, so we expect to benefit from a maximum level of participation with a minimal amount of organizational overhead."

Unlike many schema languages, TREX limits its scope to describing and validating the structure and content of an XML document. It does not attempt to specify any application processing semantics. TREX also gains simplicity by treating attributes and elements uniformly. TREX can partner with a separate datatyping language, such as the W3C XML Schema Datatypes.

"TREX is a new, powerful tool for XML developers. It focuses on validation alone and does not change the information set of a document," commented Karl Best, director of technical operations for OASIS. "Developing the TREX specification within OASIS gives the entire XML community the opportunity to contribute to this important work."

Those interested in participating in the development of TREX are encouraged to join the OASIS TREX Technical Committee. More information is available on http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/trex/index.shtml.

About OASIS
OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org) is the international, not-for-profit consortium that advances electronic business by promoting open, collaborative development of interoperability specifications. With the United Nations, OASIS sponsors ebXML, a global framework for electronic business data exchange. OASIS operates XML.ORG, the non-commercial portal that delivers information on the use of XML in industry. The XML.ORG Registry provides as an open community clearinghouse for distributing and locating XML application schemas, vocabularies and related documents. OASIS serves as the home for industry groups interested in developing XML specifications. OASIS technical work embraces conformance, security, business transactions, repositories and other interoperability issues.

OASIS sponsors include Adobe Systems, Access360, Aerospatiale, AND Data Solutions, Arbortext, Auto-trol, Aventail, Baltimore Technologies, B-Bop Associates, BEA Systems, Bentley Systems, Boeing, Bowstreet, Bridge, Business Logic Corporation, Chrystal Software, Cohesia, Commerce One, Critical Path, DataChannel, Dataloom, Defense Information Services Agency, Deutsche Post AG, Documentum, EADS Airbus, eCredit.com, empolis, Engage, Enigma, Excelergy, eXcelon, Extensibility, Extricity, First Call, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, icomXpress, Informix, Infoteria, Innodata, Interwoven, IPNet Solutions, ISOGEN, ITEDO, Ivis Group, Jamcracker, JetForm, Logistics Management Institute, Mediaplex, Mercator Software, Micrografx, Microsoft, Netegrity, Netfish, Netscape/AOL, NextPage, NII Enterprise Promotion Association, Nimble Technology, NIST, Novell, ObjectSpace, Pick Systems, Pearson Education, Planet 7 Technologies, Popkin Software, ProNet Technology, Reuters, SAA Consultants, Sabre, SAP, Securant Technologies, Sequoia Software, SilverStream Software, SoftQuad, Software AG, Sterling Commerce, StreamServe, Sun Microsystems, Tamalpais Group, Thomas Technology Solutions, TIBCO, Virtual Access Networks, Visa, Wavo, webMethods, Whitehill Technologies, Xerox, XML Global, XMLSolutions and XyEnterprise.

For more information:
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1 978.667.5115 x209

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