DMN11 — XSD internally inconsistent, does not match the spec

I believe the XSDs are seriously messed up. On the surface, this would be apparent to anyone who tried to open the level 3 xsd in an XML editor, since the “include” fails right off the bat and the tool goes ding ding ding. Not only does it point to the wrong filename, but the namespace is different, not allowed with include. You can fix those things by making the namespaces match and fixing the filespec. Actually I don’t care that much about the level 3. I am more concerned with the 14-08-19.xsd, the Level 1 and 2.

That one has an element named ItemDefinition and another one named itemDefinition with different datatype, which is confusing. I believe that the latter is a pointer to the former. If so, you will have a lot less confusion by renaming the latter itemDefinitionRef.

But the problem with the XSD goes a lot deeper. Maybe it is my lack of understanding of the spec, I don’t know. I think the central problem is that tExpression (the datatype for inputExpression, inputEntry, outputEntry, range of allowed values, and many other elements) is just a list of inputVariables and possibly a single itemDefinition(Ref). It is NOT an expression, in natural language, S-FEEL, or anything else. Maybe the intent was to allow literal expressions, but the XSD does not reference tLiteralExpression, just tExpression. Or maybe the intent was to do like BPMN and make tExpression a mixed-content type, where the expression string is the direct content of the element, but the XSD does not say that, either. Or maybe the intent is to put the expression in the any ##other element or attribute? That would work but be very weird. Anyway, without that I think it would be an impossible challenge to serialize even the simplest decision table per the XSD. And maybe that is why there are no serialization examples in the spec.

overall, early list of possible xsd issues subsumed by more focussed issues

All the substantive have been addressed by other issues. This can be closed.