Structure Annotations

One of the goals of the CAM standard was to replace the Implementation Guideline produced for EDI messages and exchanges. To do this the authors of JCAM felt that an extension to the base standard was required, that allowed CAM template designers to add annotations to the elements of the structures used within the CAM template.

These structures are held in external files and an example format is shown below:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<as:Extension xmlns:as="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/cam" name="uk.org.jcam.camed.extensions.StructureAnnotations">
  <camed:annotation xmlns:camed="http://jcam.org.uk/editor" item="//cac:ID/@identificationSchemeName">
    <camed:documentation type="Definition">A definition</camed:documentation>
    <camed:documentation type="CRM Rules">Another documentation element </camed:documentation>
  </camed:annotation>
  <camed:annotation xmlns:camed="http://jcam.org.uk/editor" item="//llu:Provision/llu:ProvisionGeneral">
    <camed:documentation type="Definition">Definition</camed:documentation>
  </camed:annotation>
</as:Extension>

The idea is that for any item - indicated by an XPath statement - may have an annotation defined. Each annotation may in turn have one or more documentation elements defined, each with a unique name.

When all this information has been defined it is possible to generate suitable documentation that covers not only the rules that define what the content must look like, but also the semantic definitions of all the elements and attributes used in the structure.

Editing Annotations.

Details of editing annotations can be found at edit annotations wizard .