Namespaces
In the Open Information Model (OIM), classes and associations share the same namespace for a single information model. This means that more than one class and/or association within the same information model cannot share the same name. The following table shows the basic structure of the OIM namespace hierarchy.
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Information Model | Corresponds to an information model | |
| Class | Class name and the associated attributes | |
| Association | A collection of nested or linked classes |
The OIM-to-Extensible Makeup Language (XML) mapping combines XML Namespaces and a naming convention to provide the following solution.
| < | Namespace | : | Name | > |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| < | Information Model Prefix | : | Class Name | > |
| < | Information Model Prefix | : | Association Name | > |
For example, <x:y> is an element tag for an object of class y in submodel x. Note that because attributes are represented as XML attributes they are scoped as part of the element. Therefore, the attribute names need to be unique only within the class, not the whole subject area of the model.
If attributes in the inheritance chain of the class share the same name, the names of the attributes are expanded to ClassName.AttributeName. If the class name is not unique, it is prefixed with the same information model prefix as the namespace.