how to reference documents that haven't been archived yet

[allyn]

The <<reference>> stereotype allows CIM documents to reference other CIM documents. When the referenced document has already been archived, and therefore already has a unique GUID, this is straightforward. But how can an id be used for a yet-to-be-defined document?

[allyn]

As of r1755 added optional externalID (of type StandardName) to the reference stereotype.

[bryan]

If you don't know what it is, surely you leave it empty?

[allyn]

The issue was to reference a document that has not been archived.  For example, consider an institute that is in the process of creating several CIM documents, some of which cross-reference one another.  In that case, what can you use as the unique ID in the reference to point to the as-yet unarchived documents?  Since they're unarchived, they don't yet have CIM Document GUIDs.

This issue was discussed with the Met Office.  I pointed out to them that there are several ways other than the GUID to reference another document (a URI, which can include an XPath expression, a name, etc.).  They were fine with this but also wanted the ability to use existing Met Office specific IDs.  So I added an externalID element to the reference stereotype (it was already part of the document stereotype).