This schema defines the standard elements of an NRCS management file. These files are also refered to as skeleton or skel files. The standard file extension is ".skel".

Editor : Joseph Levin

Version : 1.1 Draft

Document History:

Thursday, June 15, 2006

  • Fixed the duration minInclusive.
  • Added an optional meta tag which may contain any of the 15 primary Dublin Core elements.
  • Defined the allowedCharacters simpleType to restrict names to the NTFS filename characters.
  • Moved the notes element so it is before metadata, another optional element.
  • House cleaning, moved all the minOccurs and maxOccurs after the name and type attributes so the file is easier to read.
  • Created a generalProperty datatype to allow for extension of a skeleton file.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

  • Moved all the comments into schema annotation and documentation tags.
  • Generated XSDDoc to better document the schemas.
  • As suggested by Jim Lyon, the version (ver) attribute now defaults to "1.0".
  • As suggested by Jim Lyon, added a lower bound of 1 for the management duration.
  • As suggested by Jim Lyon, double quoted program names in the program attribute documentation.
  • As suggested by Jim Lyon, added a comment about the standard file extension.

Monday, February 6, 2006

  • As suggested by Jim Lyon, changed the version number from 1.0 to 1.1.
  • As suggested by Jim Lyon, added RUSLE2 and WEPS as currently known applications for the prog attribute.
  • The respective website urls are also included.
  • Moved the management attribute declarations near the end of the document. Made the netbeans xml validator happy.
  • Removed the id tag from the root schema element.
  • Defined rotationDate as a new simpleType which allows for the M/D/Y date format.

The management element is the root of an NRCS skeleton file. All other elements and atributes are contained within the management element. This element is required.

Name of the management file. This element is required.

The number of years in the management rotation. The value must be a positive integer. This element is required.

The operations element is the container for operation elements. This element is required.

The operation element contains information about a specific operation. This element is optional and unlimited in number.

The date element contains the date of the operation. The value is parsed as a rotationDate. This element is required.

The name element contains the name of the operation. This element is required.

The vegetation element contains the name of the plant or crop related to the operation. This element is optional.

The Name of the plant or crop.

Extends the vegetation with optional properties.

Extends the operation with optional properties.

Extends the management with optional properties.

Notes or comments related to the management file. This element is optional.

Container for any of the 15 Simple Dublin Core meta tags. This element is optional

The version attribute of the management element contains the version number of the skel format used. This tag is intended to allow expansion of the format while giving applications a method to detect and support older formats.

The program attribute of the management element contains the name of the originating application. This is the application which wrote the skel file. This attribute is optional.

Current Known Applications: "RUSLE2" http://www.rusle2.org and "WEPS" http://weru.ksu.edu/

Rotation dates do not conform to ISO 8601 which is the http://www.w3c.org standard for datetime fields in xml. Rotation dates may use a year 0 which does not exist in ISO 8601. This dataType allows a rotation date to be described as follows: M/D/Y.

NOTE: This dataType does not check for valid dates. For example, February 29th on leap years. The check is limited to a regular expression.

Limits the characters allowed. Based on the NTFS filesystem restrictions for filenames.

  • Does not allow the following characters "&<>\|/:*?
  • Can be up to 255 characters

General data type for extending the data stored about an element. Data stored in a generalProperty is non standard and may apply only to specific users or models. Properties may be nested. Name and value attributes are provided for convinence. Either an element or attribute should be used to specify the name or value. Elements take presedence over attributes if both exist.

Name of the property. There are currently no standard names for properties. Will vary by user and or model.

Value of the property.

Description of the property and it's intended use.

Properties may be nested. If a property has child properties it should have a name also. This will make accessing the child properties easier.

Name of the property. There are currently no standard names for properties. Will vary by user and or model.

Value of the property.