Python & XML

What Does ebXML Offer?

Electronic Business XML (ebXML) was formed to improve upon the EDI standard, and level the playing field between trading partners. The OASIS consortium, along with the United Nation’s UN/CEFACT body, formed ebXML as a collaborative effort, and published information concerning ebXML at http://www.ebxml.org/.

So what does ebXML signify for programmers? In reality, it means a complex set of documents and even more complex set up of transactional document flows. Adopting ebXML means adopting not only a dialect of document instances, but a business process modeling flow to connect things together.

ebXML Document Structure

The dialect portion of ebXML deals with message formats. The specification puts forth guidelines that must be used when creating ebXML documents. Simple structure is used in ebXML. The specification requires that element and attribute names follow a standard capitalization arrangement, similar to Java names. Using a scheme described as upper and lower camel-case, ebXML element and attribute names have the following capitalization format:

<MyElementName myElementAttribute="..." myOtherElementAttr="...">

Additionally, underscores ( _ ), periods (.), and dashes (-) are not allowed in element or attribute names, though they are legal in general XML.

Business Process and Modeling

In ebXML, business process and information modeling is not mandatory. But if it is used, it is required to be UMM (UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology). This is a modeling language ...