IMPORTANT — CORRECTION TO ONIX RELEASE 3.0
Posted September 21, 2009
We have today posted corrected versions of the ONIX 3.0 schemas and documentation on the EDItEUR
website: http://www.editeur.org/93/Release-3.0-Downloads/
The new schemas and DTDs correct an error in the definition of the <UnnamedPersons> element
(P.7.45).
The new documentation package includes all corrections reported to date, including those which were
notified to the listserv on 4th August. Since then, no new documentation errors have been reported, in
spite of an appeal to the listserv for any further feedback.
WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT IF YOU HAVE DOWNLOADED ONIX 3.0 SCHEMAS
AND/OR DOCUMENTATION, YOU SHOULD REPLACE PREVIOUSLY DOWNLOADED
COPIES WITH THESE CORRECTED VERSIONS.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact the ONIX Support Team via the email address
info@editeur.org.
~ONIX Support Team
IMPORTANT — CORRECTION TO ONIX RELEASE 3.0
Posted July 20, 2009
The ONIX Support Team would like to draw your attention to an important, and exceptional, correction
that has been made to all schema versions for ONIX Release 3.0, and to the issue of correspondingly
corrected versions of the documentation.
The correction affects the tagging of all ONIX messages that are to conform to ONIX Release 3.0, and
therefore should be included in all current and future implementations. Earlier releases are not affected.
A mandatory 'release' attribute, with fixed value '3.0' has been added to the top-level element in both
short and reference tag versions of the schema.
An ONIX message that is valid according to the Release 3.0 schema must therefore start as follows:
In the case of the reference tag version:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ONIXMessage release="3.0">
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In the case of the short tag version:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ONIXmessage release="3.0">
The schemas have been revised to incorporate this correction. All affected documentation has also been
corrected and uploaded. We have taken this opportunity to incorporate corrections to a number of
mostly minor errors in the text of the various documents. In all cases a list of corrections is given on one
of the opening pages.
WE STRONGLY ADVISE THAT YOU SHOULD DOWNLOAD AND REPLACE ANY
WORKING COPIES OF RELEASE 3.0 SCHEMAS AND DOCUMENTATION.
BACKGROUND TO THE SCHEMA AMENDMENT
In earlier releases of ONIX for Books the release number was explicitly provided by the DTD declaration. The decision to
omit the requirement to include a DTD declaration from ONIX 3.0 was taken for two reasons:
(a) The Release 3.0 schema is available in three forms - DTD, XSD and RNG - and we are recommending that implementers
use the XSD or RNG forms, as these enable the use of code lists to be validated. It therefore makes no sense to require the
inclusion of a DTD declaration
in all Release 3.0 messages.
(b) The inclusion of references to the EDItEUR web server in all DTD declarations in valid ONIX messages has been
putting a considerable strain on EDItEUR web server resources, and this could only get worse over time, as the number of
ONIX implementations increases.
The unintended consequence of this change was that there would be no explicit reference to the release number in an ONIX
3.0 message. As a result of a query from an early implementer, it has become clear that the absence of any such mechanism
will make it difficult to distinguish between Release 3.0 and future revisions. The introduction of a
mandatory 'release' attribute is the simplest method of addressing this issue.
Future releases will involve changes to the fixed value of the 'release' attribute.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact the ONIX Support Team via the email address
info@editeur.org.
~ONIX Support Team
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