public interface ClassificationScheme extends RegistryEntry {
// Public Constants
public static final int VALUE_TYPE_EMBEDDED_PATH;
//=1
public static final int VALUE_TYPE_NON_UNIQUE;
//=2
public static final int VALUE_TYPE_UNIQUE;
//=0
// Property Accessor Methods (by property name)
public abstract int getChildConceptCount( )
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L0
public abstract Collection getChildrenConcepts( )
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L0
public abstract Collection getDescendantConcepts( )
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L0
public abstract boolean isExternal( )
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L0
public abstract int getValueType( )
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L1
public abstract void setValueType(int valueType)
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L1
// Public Instance Methods
public abstract void addChildConcept(Concept concept)
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L0
public abstract void addChildConcepts(Collection concepts)
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L0
public abstract void removeChildConcept(Concept concept)
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L0
public abstract void removeChildConcepts(Collection concepts)
throws javax.xml.registry.JAXRException; //L0
}
A ClassificationScheme represents a hierarchy of
related classifications that can be used to categorize objects in a
registry. There are several commonly used classification schemes,
such as NAICS, ISO-3166, and UNSPSC, that can be used to describe a
business or service in various different ways. The NAICS scheme, for
example, is used to categorize objects by their business type, such
as "Book Publisher," whereas the
ISO-3166 is used to denote geographical location. By associating
elements of both schemes (represented in the JAXR model by
Classification objects) with a business, it is
possible to indicate that your Organization is a
U.S.-based book publisher in such a way that potential clients could
search for items tagged with these attributes.
A ClassificationScheme is hierarchical, with
broader classifications appearing toward the root of the hierarchy
and more specific ones toward the leaf nodes. The structure of the
hierarchy may be known to the registry and represented as a hierarchy
of Concepts, in which each
Concept represents a single classification node.
Such a ClassificationScheme is referred to as an
internal scheme. An internal scheme has the advantage that you can
use the JAXR API to navigate the Concept hierarchy
to find out what classifications are available, and you can check
whether a classification that claims to be within the scheme actually
exists. By contrast, an external
ClassificationScheme's existence
is known to the registry, but its structure is not. As a result, the
registry cannot check whether classifications that claim to be part
of an external scheme are valid, and cannot provide a way to discover
all of the valid classifications.
You can use the findClassificationSchemes( ) and
findClassificationSchemeByName( ) methods of
BusinessLifeCycleManager to look up a
ClassificationScheme, as the following code
extract illustrates for the NAICS scheme:
ClassificationScheme naics = bqm.findClassificationSchemeByName(null,
"%naics%");
To create a new scheme, use one of the
createClassificationScheme( ) methods of
LifeCycleManager:
ClassificationScheme myScheme = blcm.
createClassificationSchemeByName("MyScheme", "My Private Scheme");
If your scheme is going to be internal, you need to create the
Concepts that represent the classification nodes
and link them together to form the required structure. The top-level
nodes can then be added to the
ClassificationScheme using the
addChildConcept( ) or addChildConcepts(
) methods. You can navigate the structure of an internal
scheme using its getChildrenConcepts( ) and
getDescendentConcepts( ) methods, together with
the methods of Concept that allow its children and
parents to be discovered. An external scheme has no internal
structure known to the registry and therefore does not need to be
constructed in the same way. Note that some registries, in particular
the UDDI V2 registry, do not support the dynamic definition of
internal classification schemes so that, although you can use the
JAXR API to build one, you cannot save it. JAXR providers are
required instead to provide a client-side mechanism that simulates
the existence of custom internal classification schemes, although the
exact mechanism is implementation-dependent. The reference
implementation uses an XML file to represent such a classification
scheme, as described in Chapter 7. Custom internal
classification schemes can be created and stored in an ebXML registry
as just described.
The getValueType( ) and setValueType(
) methods can be used to get and set an attribute that
describes the value parts of the nodes in the scheme hierarchy. The
following values are defined:
- VALUE_TYPE_UNIQUE
-
Each node in the ClassificationScheme hierarchy
has a unique value.
- VALUE_TYPE_NON_UNIQUE
-
More than one node in the hierarchy may have the same value, although
any two nodes belonging to the same parent must still have distinct
values. As a result, to uniquely identify a classification within
such a scheme, you may need the entire path from the node to the
root.
- VALUE_TYPE_EMBEDDED_PATH
-
The value embeds the path from its node to the root of the scheme.
This guarantees, of course, that the value is unique.
