Specification for the
                       Representation of CIM in XML

DSP0201                                                                                        Status: Final
Version 2.2, January 09, 2007

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 Contents

Abstract

1. Introduction

1.1. A Note on Rendering to MOF

1.2. Terminology

1.3. Style

2. A Note On Mapping Choices

2.1. CIM Terminology

3. The CIM XML Schema Reference

3.1. Entity Descriptions

3.1.1. CIMName

3.1.2. CIMType

3.1.3. QualifierFlavor

3.1.4. ClassOrigin

3.1.5. Propagated

3.1.6. ArraySize

3.1.7. SuperClass

3.1.8. ClassName

3.1.9. ReferenceClass

3.1.10. ParamType

3.2. Element Descriptions

3.2.1. Top Level Elements

3.2.1.1. CIM

3.2.2. Declaration Elements

3.2.2.1. DECLARATION

3.2.2.2. DECLGROUP

3.2.2.3. DECLGROUP.WITHNAME

3.2.2.4. DECLGROUP.WITHPATH

3.2.2.5. QUALIFIER.DECLARATION

3.2.2.6. SCOPE

3.2.3. Value Elements

3.2.3.1. VALUE

3.2.3.2. VALUE.ARRAY

3.2.3.3. VALUE.REFERENCE

3.2.3.4. VALUE.REFARRAY

3.2.3.5. VALUE.OBJECT

3.2.3.6. VALUE.NAMEDINSTANCE

3.2.3.7. VALUE.NAMEDOBJECT

3.2.3.8. VALUE.OBJECTWITHPATH

3.2.3.9. VALUE.OBJECTWITHLOCALPATH

3.2.3.10. VALUE.NULL

3.2.4. Naming and Location Elements

3.2.4.1. NAMESPACEPATH

3.2.4.2. LOCALNAMESPACEPATH

3.2.4.3. HOST

3.2.4.4. NAMESPACE

3.2.4.5. CLASSPATH

3.2.4.6. LOCALCLASSPATH

3.2.4.7. CLASSNAME

3.2.4.8. INSTANCEPATH

3.2.4.9. LOCALINSTANCEPATH

3.2.4.10. INSTANCENAME

3.2.4.11. OBJECTPATH

3.2.4.12. KEYBINDING

3.2.4.13. KEYVALUE

3.2.5. Object Definition Elements

3.2.5.1. CLASS

3.2.5.2. INSTANCE

3.2.5.3. QUALIFIER

3.2.5.4. PROPERTY

3.2.5.5. PROPERTY.ARRAY

3.2.5.6. PROPERTY.REFERENCE

3.2.5.7. METHOD

3.2.5.8. PARAMETER

3.2.5.9. PARAMETER.REFERENCE

3.2.5.10. PARAMETER.ARRAY

3.2.5.11. PARAMETER.REFARRAY

3.2.5.12. TABLECELL.DECLARATION

3.2.5.13. TABLECELL.REFERENCE

3.2.5.14. TABLEROW.DECLARATION

3.2.5.15. TABLE

3.2.5.16. TABLEROW

3.2.6. Message Elements

3.2.6.1. MESSAGE

3.2.6.2. MULTIREQ

3.2.6.3. SIMPLEREQ

3.2.6.4. METHODCALL

3.2.6.5. PARAMVALUE

3.2.6.6. IMETHODCALL

3.2.6.7. IPARAMVALUE

3.2.6.8. MULTIRSP

3.2.6.9. SIMPLERSP

3.2.6.10. METHODRESPONSE

3.2.6.11. IMETHODRESPONSE

3.2.6.12. ERROR

3.2.6.13. RETURNVALUE

3.2.6.14. IRETURNVALUE

3.2.6.15 MULTIEXPREQ

3.2.6.16 SIMPLEEXPREQ

3.2.6.17 EXPMETHODCALL

3.2.6.18 MULTIEXPRSP

3.2.6.19 SIMPLEEXPRSP

3.2.6.20 EXPMETHODRESPONSE

3.2.6.21 EXPPARAMVALUE

4. References

Appendix A: Change History

Abstract

The Common Information Model (CIM) is an object-oriented information model defined by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) which provides a conceptual framework for describing management data.

This document defines a standard for the representation of Common Information Model (CIM) elements and messages in XML.

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1. Introduction

For convenience the complete unannotated DTD is available as a separate document [11].

There are potentially many different ways in which CIM information could be represented within XML. In the interests of interoperability between different implementations of CIM there is an obvious requirement for standardization of this representation. The following criteria have been applied in the design of the representation presented here:

• Fully standardized technologies are used wherever possible, in preference to Working Drafts. Where use is made of a Working Draft, the intention is to track the changes to the Working Draft in this specification.
• Completeness is favored over conciseness (all aspects of CIM should be modeled).

1. XML documents conforming to this mapping that express CIM declarations should be capable of being rendered or transformed using standard techniques into other formats.  In particular the mapping should contain sufficient information to be rendered into MOF (Managed Object Format) syntax [1].
2. The mapping should be applicable to the wire-level representation of CIM Messages defined by the CIM Operations over HTTP [9].

1.1. A Note On Rendering to MOF

The semantic content of a MOF file is fully captured by the DTD presented herein, so that it is possible to express any MOF conformant to [1] in an equivalent XML representation using this DTD. This includes the ability to express any of the standard MOF pragmas defined in [1], with the exception of the locale and instancelocale pragmas (which is a subject for further study in the context of localization support within CIM).

Note that the Processing Instruction (PI) mechanism defined by XML is the means by which bespoke pragmas may be added to an XML document in an analogous manner to the #pragma extension mechanism defined for MOF. The format of such PIs is necessarily outside the scope of this document.

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1.2. Terminology

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1.3. Style

Examples are displayed in this fashion:
 

This is an example

Definitions are illustrated thusly:
 

This is a definition

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2. A Note on Mapping Choices

• A Schema Mapping is one in which the XML Schema is used to describe the CIM classes, and CIM Instances are mapped to valid XML Documents for that schema. (Essentially this means that each CIM class generates its own DTD fragment, the XML element names of which are taken directly from the corresponding CIM element names.)
• A Metaschema Mapping is one in which the XML schema is used to describe the CIM metaschema, and both CIM classes and instances are valid XML documents for that schema. (In other words the DTD is used to describe in a generic fashion the notion of a CIM class or instance. CIM element names are mapped to XML attribute or element values, rather than XML element names.)

• It only requires one standardized metaschema DTD for CIM, rather than an unbounded number of DTDs. This considerably reduces the complexity of management and administration of XML mappings.
• XML DTD does not allow an unordered list of elements. In a static mapping this would mean either:
• Fixing an arbitrary order for property, method and qualifier lists (making it harder for a receiving application to process), or;
• Defining a very unwieldy mapping which took account of all list orderings explicitly (and whose size would grow exponentially with the number of list elements).
• In a schema mapping, the names of CIM schema elements (class, property, qualifier and method names) populate the XML element namespace. In order to replicate the scoping rules on CIM element names within XML DTD, it would be necessary to employ XML Namespaces [3] to define XML Schema to per-property level of granularity. This would be extremely cumbersome to administer and process. A metaschema mapping only introduces a small, fixed number of terms into the XML element namespace (such as "Class", "Instance", "Property", and so forth). As an alternative to the introduction of additional XML Namespaces, some renaming of CIM elements could be used (for example, prefixing a qualifier name with the name of its owning property and its owning class), but this would result in XML documents that were verbose and difficult to understand.
• Although a schema mapping could allow XML-based validation of instances against classes, this would only be possible if the entire class hierarchy were flattened prior to mapping the CIM Class to an XML Schema. If this flattening were not performed then inherited properties may be absent from the DTD, which would cause validation to fail against an instance that included the value of an inherited property.

2.1. CIM Terminology

The term XML Element is used to describe a component of XML defined using the ELEMENT construct in DTD.

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3. The CIM XML Schema Reference

3.1. Entity Descriptions

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3.1.1. CIMName

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3.1.2. CIMType

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3.1.3. QualifierFlavor

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3.1.4. ClassOrigin

The CLASSORIGIN attribute defines the name of the originating class (the Class in which the Property or Method was first defined) of the CIM element represented by the XML element to which the attribute is attached.
 

<!ENTITY % ClassOrigin     "CLASSORIGIN CDATA #IMPLIED">

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3.1.5. Propagated

This attribute indicates whether the definition of the CIM Property, Qualifier or Method is local to the CIM Class (respectively, Instance) in which it appears, or was propagated without modification from the underlying Subclass (respectively, Class), as defined by [1].
 

<!ENTITY % Propagated        "PROPAGATED (true|false) 'false'">

Uses of the PROPAGATED attribute include:

• To facilitate the rendering of CIM XML declarations into MOF syntax, which by convention only describes local overrides in a CIM Subclass or Instance.
• To filter XML representations of CIM Classes or Instances so that they can be returned as responses to CIM Operation requests [9] which require only local elements.

3.1.6. ArraySize

The ARRAYSIZE attribute defines the size of the array in the case that it is constrained to a fixed number of elements. The value of this attribute (if it is present) must be a positive integer.

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3.1.7. SuperClass

This attribute defines the name of the superclass.  Where it is omitted, it MUST be inferred that the owning element has no superclass.

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3.1.8. ClassName

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3.1.9. ReferenceClass

The value defines the class name for the reference and the requirement for the existence of this attribute is dependent on the entity in which it is used. The expected behavior is that the REFERENCECLASS attribute MUST exist for Classes and SHOULD NOT exist for instances.

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3.1.10. ParamType

The ParamType entity describes the allowed type descriptions for parameter values or return values.

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3.1.11 EmbeddedObject

The  EmbeddedObject entity defines an embedded object or an embedded instance.  This may be applied only to entities that have the Type string.

This attribute is to be used to represent  the existence of an EMBEDDEDINSTANCE or EMBEDDEDOBJECT qualifier on the corresponding meta data (method, parameter, or property).

If the qualifier EMBEDDEDOBJECT is defined for the method, parameter, or property, the EmbeddedObject attribute MUST BE attached to the corresponding property in any instance, PARAMVALUE, or RETURNVALUE with the value "object".

If the qualifier EMBEDDEDINSTANCE exists for the method, parameter, or property, the EmbeddedObject attribute MUST BE attached to the corresponding property in any instance, PARAMVALUE, or RETURNVALUE with the value "instance".

3.2. Element Descriptions

3.2.1. Top Level Elements

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3.2.1.1. CIM

Each document takes one of two forms; it either contains a single MESSAGE element defining a CIM message (to be used in the CIM Operations over HTTP defined in [9]), or it contains a DECLARATION element used to declare a set of CIM objects.
 

<!ELEMENT CIM (MESSAGE|DECLARATION)> <!ATTLIST CIM          CIMVERSION CDATA #REQUIRED           DTDVERSION CDATA #REQUIRED>

The CIMVERSION attribute defines the version of the CIM Specification to which the XML Document conforms. It MUST be in the form of  "M.N". Where M is the Major Version of the specification in numeric form and N is the minor version of the specification in numeric form.  For example, "2.0", "2.1".  Implementations must only validate the major version as all minor versions are backward compatible. Implementations may look at the minor version to determine additional capabilites.

The DTDVERSION attribute defines the version of the CIM XML Mapping to which the XML Document conforms. It MUST be in the form of  "M.N". Where M is the Major Version of the specification in numeric form and N is the minor version of the specification in numeric form.  For example, "2.0", "2.1".  Implementations must only validate the major version as all minor versions are backward compatible. Implementations may look at the minor version to determine additional capabilites.

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3.2.2. Declaration Elements

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3.2.2.1. DECLARATION

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3.2.2.2. DECLGROUP

The objects within the group are CIM Classes, Instances and Qualifiers. Object declarations must be ordered correctly with respect to the target implementation state. If the DECLGROUP references a class without defining it first, the server must reject it as invalid if it does not already have a definition of that class.
 

<!ELEMENT DECLGROUP  ((LOCALNAMESPACEPATH|NAMESPACEPATH)?,QUALIFIER.DECLARATION*,VALUE.OBJECT*)>

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3.2.2.3. DECLGROUP.WITHNAME

The objects within the group are CIM Classes, Instances and Qualifiers. Object declarations must be ordered correctly with respect to the target implementation state. If the DECLGROUP.WITHNAME references a class without defining it first, the server must reject it as invalid if it does not already have a definition of that class.

This element extends the DECLGROUP element in the sense that any Instance declaration contains an explicit Instance Name (i.e. a Model Path in the terms of the CIM specification [1]).
 

<!ELEMENT DECLGROUP.WITHNAME  ((LOCALNAMESPACEPATH|NAMESPACEPATH)?,QUALIFIER.DECLARATION*,VALUE.NAMEDOBJECT*)>

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3.2.2.4. DECLGROUP.WITHPATH

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3.2.2.5. QUALIFIER.DECLARATION

The declaration MAY include a default value.  If the Qualifier has a non-array type, it contains a single VALUE element representing the value of the Qualifier. If the Qualifier has an array type, it contains a single VALUE.ARRAY element to represent the value.

The SCOPE subelement, if present, defines the valid set of scopes for this Qualifier.  If absent it implies that there is no restriction on the scope at which the Qualifier may be applied (so that it has 'any' scope in the terminology of CIM [1]).
 

<!ELEMENT QUALIFIER.DECLARATION (SCOPE?,(VALUE|VALUE.ARRAY)?)> <!ATTLIST QUALIFIER.DECLARATION       %CIMName;      %CIMType;                       #REQUIRED       ISARRAY        (true|false)     #IMPLIED      %ArraySize;      %QualifierFlavor;>

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Qualifier, and the TYPE and ISARRAY attributes together define the CIM Type. The ISARRAY attribute MUST be present if the Qualifier declares no default value, in order to infer whether the Qualifier has an array type or not.  The ISARRAY attribute SHOULD be absent if the Qualifier declares a default value, as in this case whether the Qualifier has an array type can be deduced from whether a VALUE or VALUE.ARRAY element is used to declare that default; if present its value MUST be consistent with the declared Qualifier default value.

The ARRAYSIZE attribute MUST NOT be present if the value of the ISARRAY attribute is true. If the ARRAYSIZE attribute is present, this indicates that the values taken by this Qualifier MUST be of the size specified by the value of this attribute.

The flavor attributes declared using the QualifierFlavor entity define the propagation and override semantics for the Qualifier.

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3.2.2.6. SCOPE

The attributes define which scopes are valid.  A SCOPE element MUST declare at least one attribute with a true value (otherwise the Qualifier would have no applicable scope).

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3.2.3. Value Elements

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3.2.3.1. VALUE

Values are not type-validatable using DTD, so each value appears in PCDATA format irrespective of the type. The TYPE attribute of the parent element will determine the (CIM) type of the value. The format of the PCDATA content depends on the CIM type, and is described in what follows.

String Values

If the CIM type is string, then the PCDATA value MUST be a sequence of zero or more UCS-2 characters. The value MUST NOT be surrounded by string delimiter characters (such as double-quote or single-quote). The actual representation of characters depends on the encoding attribute defined for the <?xml> processing instruction.

If this value contains reserved XML characters, then it MUST be escaped using standard XML character escaping mechanisms.

Character Values

If the CIM type is char, then the PCDATA value MUST be a single UCS-2 character.  The value MUST NOT be surrounded by single-quote characters. If this value is a reserved XML character, then it MUST be escaped using standard XML character escaping mechanisms. The actual representation of the character depends on the encoding attribute defined for the <?xml> processing instruction.

Real Values

If the CIM type is real32 or real64, then the PCDATA value MUST conform to the following syntax:

 [ "+" | "-" ] *decimalDigit "." 1*decimalDigit [ ( "e" | "E" ) [ "+" | "-" ] 1*decimalDigit ]

where decimalDigit is any character from the set {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7, 8, 9}.

Boolean Values

If the CIM type is boolean, then the PCDATA value MUST be either TRUE or FALSE. These values MUST be treated as case-insensitive.

Integer Values

If the CIM type belongs to the set {uint8, uint16, uint32, uint64} then the PCDATA value MUST be a valid unsigned decimal or hexadecimal value.

If the CIM type belongs to the set {sint8, sint16, sint32, sint64} then the PCDATA value MUST be a valid signed decimal or hexadecimal value.

Decimal values have the format:

 [ "+" | "-" ] ( positiveDecimalDigit *decimalDigit | "0" )

Where decimalDigit is as defined above and positiveDecimalDigit is any decimal digit other than 0. The leading sign character MUST NOT be used when the CIM type is unsigned.

Hexadecimal values have the format:

 [ "+" | "-" ] ( "0x" | "0X" ) 1*hexDigit

Where hexDigit is either a decimalDigit or a character from the set {a, A, b, B, c, C, d, D, e, E, f, F}. The leading sign character MUST NOT be used when the CIM type is unsigned.

Datetime Values

If the CIM type is datetime then the PCDATA value MUST be a valid datetime value as defined in detail by the CIM specification [1]. (For interval values the format is ddddddddhhmmss.mmmmmm:000, and for absolute values the format is yyyymmddhhmmss.mmmmmmsutc).

The value MUST NOT be surrounded by string delimiter characters (such as double-quote or single-quote).

3.2.3.2. VALUE.ARRAY

CIM arrays are classified as "Bag", "Ordered" or "Indexed" [1] using the ARRAYTYPE Qualifier. If the array is Ordered or Indexed then the constituent VALUE elements MUST appear in the correct order.
 

<!ELEMENT VALUE.ARRAY (VALUE*)>

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3.2.3.3. VALUE.REFERENCE

If a LOCALCLASSPATH or LOCALINSTANCEPATH subelement is used, the target object is assumed to be on the same host.  If a CLASSNAME or INSTANCENAME is used, the target object is assumed to be in the same Namespace.
 

<!ELEMENT VALUE.REFERENCE (CLASSPATH|LOCALCLASSPATH|CLASSNAME|INSTANCEPATH|LOCALINSTANCEPATH|INSTANCENAME)>

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3.2.3.4. VALUE.REFARRAY

CIM arrays are classified as "Bag", "Ordered" or "Indexed" [1] using the ARRAYTYPE Qualifier. If the array is Ordered or Indexed then the constituent VALUE.REFERENCE elements MUST appear in the correct order.
 

<!ELEMENT VALUE.REFARRAY (VALUE.REFERENCE*)>

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3.2.3.5. VALUE.OBJECT

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3.2.3.6. VALUE.NAMEDINSTANCE

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3.2.3.7. VALUE.NAMEDOBJECT

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3.2.3.8. VALUE.OBJECTWITHPATH

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3.2.3.9. VALUE.OBJECTWITHLOCALPATH

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3.2.3.10. VALUE.NULL

The VALUE.NULL element is used to represent a TABLECELL that has no assigned value. 

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3.2.4. Naming and Location Elements

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3.2.4.1. NAMESPACEPATH

The NAMESPACE elements MUST appear in hierarchy order, with the root Namespace appearing first.
 

<!ELEMENT NAMESPACEPATH (HOST,LOCALNAMESPACEPATH)>

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3.2.4.2. LOCALNAMESPACEPATH

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3.2.4.3. HOST

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3.2.4.4. NAMESPACE

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Namespace.

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3.2.4.5. CLASSPATH

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3.2.4.6. LOCALCLASSPATH

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3.2.4.7. CLASSNAME

The NAME attribute defines the name of the class.

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3.2.4.8. INSTANCEPATH

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3.2.4.9. LOCALINSTANCEPATH

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3.2.4.10. INSTANCENAME

If the Class has a single key property, then a single KEYVALUE or VALUE.REFERENCE subelement may be used to describe the (necessarily) unique key value without a key name. Alternatively a single KEYBINDING subelement may be used instead.

If the Class has more than one key property, then a KEYBINDING subelement MUST appear for each key.

If there are no key-bindings specified, the instance is assumed to be a singleton instance of a keyless Class.
 

<!ELEMENT INSTANCENAME (KEYBINDING*|KEYVALUE?|VALUE.REFERENCE?)> <!ATTLIST INSTANCENAME     %ClassName;>

The CLASSNAME attribute defines the name of the class for this path.

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3.2.4.11. OBJECTPATH

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3.2.4.12. KEYBINDING

The NAME attribute indicates the name of the key property.

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3.2.4.13. KEYVALUE

Values are not type-validatable using DTD, so each value appears in PCDATA format irrespective of the type. The data type of the underlying key property determines the format of the PCDATA value. The rules for how the content of this element is formatted depending on that data type are exactly the same as for the VALUE element.

The VALUETYPE provides information regarding the data type to allow the transformation of the key value to and from its' textual equivalent (as part of a text-based CIM object path, as defined in [1]). The value of this attribute MUST conform to the following rules:

• If the CIM type is string, datetime or char16, then the value is string.
• If the CIM type is boolean, then the value is boolean.
• Otherwise the value is numeric.

The CIMType attribute is optional and, when provided, can be used to improve performance. If specified, the CIMType attribute MUST be the data type of the underlying key property.

3.2.5. Object Definition Elements

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3.2.5.1. CLASS

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Class.

The SUPERCLASS attribute, if present, defines the name of the superclass of this class. If absent, it should be inferred that the class in question has no superclass.

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3.2.5.2. INSTANCE

The CLASSNAME attribute defines the name of the CIM Class of which this is an Instance.

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3.2.5.3. QUALIFIER

If the Qualifier has no assigned value then the VALUE element MUST be absent.
 

<!ELEMENT QUALIFIER ((VALUE|VALUE.ARRAY)?)> <!ATTLIST QUALIFIER       %CIMName;      %CIMType;               #REQUIRED       %Propagated;      %QualifierFlavor;      xml:lang  NMTOKEN  #IMPLIED>

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Qualifier, and the TYPE defines the CIM Type.

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3.2.5.4. PROPERTY

If the Property has no assigned value then the VALUE element MUST be absent.

CIM Reference Properties are described using the PROPERTY.REFERENCE element.
 

<!ELEMENT PROPERTY (QUALIFIER*,VALUE?)> <!ATTLIST PROPERTY       %CIMName;      %CIMType;           #REQUIRED       %ClassOrigin;      %Propagated;      %EmbeddedObject;      xml:lang   NMTOKEN  #IMPLIED>

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Property, and the TYPE defines the CIM Type.

If the Class definition for the property includes the qualifiers EMBEDDEDOBJECT or EMBEDDEDINSTANCE, the corresponding EmbeddedObject attribute and EmbeddedClassName attributes MUST BE included for properties in instances elements of that class. These attributes MUST NOT be attached to class elements.

1. A property that is defined in MOF as an embeddedObject with the inclusion of the EmbeddedObject qualifier  on the  property MUST be represented using the attribute EmbeddedObject with the value "object".  The value MUST be a valid INSTANCE element, defining a single CIM Instance of a CIM Class or a valid CLASS element`.

2. A property that is defined in MOF as an embedded instance with the inclusion of the EmbeddedInstance qualifier on a  property MUST be represented using the attribute EmbeddedObject with the value "instance".  The VALUE MUST be a valid INSTANCE element, defining a single CIM Instance.

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3.2.5.5. PROPERTY.ARRAY

If the Property has no assigned value then the VALUE.ARRAY element MUST be absent.

There is no element to model a Property that contains an array of references as this is not a valid Property type according to CIM [1].
 

<!ELEMENT PROPERTY.ARRAY (QUALIFIER*,VALUE.ARRAY?)> <!ATTLIST PROPERTY.ARRAY      %CIMName;     %CIMType;           #REQUIRED      %ArraySize;     %ClassOrigin;     %Propagated;     %EmbeddedObject;     xml:lang   NMTOKEN  #IMPLIED>

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Property, and the TYPE defines the CIM Type.

If the ARRAYSIZE attribute is not present on a PROPERTY.ARRAY element within a containing CLASS or ASSOCIATION.CLASS element, this indicates that the array is of variable size.

Presence or otherwise of the ARRAYSIZE attribute on a PROPERTY.ARRAY element within a containing INSTANCE element MUST NOT be taken to imply that the Property type is or is not a fixed-size array (i.e. the CLASS definition is always authoritative in this respect).

If the Class definition for the property includes the qualifiers EMBEDDEDOBJECT or EMBEDDEDINSTANCE, the corresponding EmbeddedObject attribute  MUST BE included.

1. A property that is defined in MOF as an embeddedObject with the inclusion of the EmbeddedObject qualifier  on the  property MUST be defined using the type "object".  The value MUST be a valid INSTANCE element, defining a single CIM Instance of a CIM Class or a valid CLASS element.

2. A property that is defined in MOF as an embedded instance with the inclusion of the EmbeddedInstance qualifier on a  property MUST be defined as the type "instance". The VALUE MUST be a valid INSTANCE element, defining a single CIM Instance.

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3.2.5.6. PROPERTY.REFERENCE

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Property.

The REFERENCECLASS attribute, if present, defines the strong type of the reference.  If not present it indicates that this reference is not strongly typed. The expected behavior is that the REFERENCECLASS attribute MUST

exist for  PROPERTY.REFERENCE usage in class entities and SHOULD NOT exist for instance entities since the reference class name should be defined in the property value.

The ClassOrigin and Propagated entities are used in the same manner as for other CIM Properties.

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3.2.5.7. METHOD

The order of the PARAMETER, PARAMETER.REFERENCE, PARAMETER.ARRAY and PARAMETER.REFARRAY subelements is not significant.
 

<!ELEMENT METHOD (QUALIFIER*,(PARAMETER|PARAMETER.REFERENCE|PARAMETER.ARRAY|PARAMETER.REFARRAY)*)> <!ATTLIST METHOD       %CIMName;      %CIMType;          #IMPLIED       %ClassOrigin;      %Propagated;>

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Method.

The TYPE attribute defines the method return type, if the method returns a value.  If this attribute is absent then the method MUST  return no value (i.e. it has the special return type void).

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3.2.5.8. PARAMETER

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Parameter. The TYPE attribute defines the CIM type of the parameter.

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3.2.5.9. PARAMETER.REFERENCE

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Parameter.

The REFERENCECLASS attribute, if present, defines the strong type of the reference.  If absent the parameter is assumed to a reference that is not strongly typed.
 

The expected behavior is that the REFERENCECLASS attribute MUST exist for PARAMETER.REFERENCE entities.

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3.2.5.10. PARAMETER.ARRAY

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Parameter. The TYPE attribute defines the CIM type of the parameter.

The ARRAYSIZE attribute is present if and only if the array is constrained to a fixed number of elements. If it has empty content this indicates that the array is of variable size.

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3.2.5.11. PARAMETER.REFARRAY

The NAME attribute defines the name of the Parameter.

The REFERENCECLASS attribute defines the strong type of a reference.  If absent, it is assumed that the parameter is not a strongly typed reference. The expected behavior is that the REFERENCECLASS attribute MUST exist for  PARAMETER.REFARRAY entities.

The ARRAYSIZE attribute is present if and only if the array is constrained to a fixed number of elements. If absent this indicates that the array is of variable size.

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3.2.6. Message Elements

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3.2.6.1. MESSAGE

The ID attribute defines an identifier for the MESSAGE.  The content of the value is not constrained by this specification, but the intention is this be used as a correlation mechanism between two CIM  entities.

The PROTOCOLVERSION attribute defines the version of the CIM Operations to which this message conforms.  It MUST be in the form of  "M.N". Where M is the Major Version of the specification in numeric form and N is the minor version of the specification in numeric form.  For example, "1.0", "1.1".  Implementations must only validate the major version as all minor versions are backward compatible. Implementations may look at the minor version to determine additional capabilites.

The HTTP mapping specification [9] provides more details on the values that these attributes may take.

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3.2.6.2. MULTIREQ

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3.2.6.3. SIMPLEREQ

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3.2.6.4. METHODCALL

The NAME attribute defines the name of the method to be invoked.

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3.2.6.5. PARAMVALUE

The NAME attribute defines the name of the parameter. The PARAMTYPE attribute defines the type of the parameter.

The EmbeddedObject attribute defines that this PARAMVALUE represents a CIM Embedded Object.  This attribute may only be applied to string Types and represents a parameter that has the qualifier EMBEDDEDOBJECT or EMBEDDEDINSTANCE attached.

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3.2.6.6. IMETHODCALL

The IMETHODCALL element defines a single intrinsic method invocation.  It specifies the target local namespace, followed by zero or more IPARAMVALUE subelements as the parameter values to be passed to the method.

The NAME attribute defines the name of the method to be invoked.

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3.2.6.7. IPARAMVALUE

The NAME attribute defines the name of the parameter.

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3.2.6.8. MULTIRSP

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3.2.6.9. SIMPLERSP

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3.2.6.10. METHODRESPONSE

The NAME attribute defines the name of the method that was invoked.

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3.2.6.11. IMETHODRESPONSE

The NAME attribute defines the name of the method that was invoked.

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3.2.6.12. ERROR

The ERROR element is used to define a fundamental error which prevented a method from executing normally. It consists of a status code, an optional description and zero or more instances containing detailed information about the error.

The CODE attribute contains a numerical status code indicating the nature of the error.  The valid status codes are defined in [9].  The DESCRIPTION attribute, if present, provides a human-readable description of the error.

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3.2.6.13. RETURNVALUE

The PARAMTYPE attribute defines the type of the return value.

The EmbeddedObject attribute defines that this RETURNVALUE represents a CIM Embedded Object.  This attribute may only be applied to string Types and represents a parameter that has the qualifier EMBEDDEDOBJECT or EMBEDDEDINSTANCE attached.  

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3.2.6.14. IRETURNVALUE

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3.2.6.15. MULTIEXPREQ

The MULTIEXPREQ element defines a Multiple CIM Export request.  It contains two or more subelements defining the SIMPLEEXPREQ elements that make up this multiple request.

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3.2.6.16. SIMPLEEXPREQ

The SIMPLEEXPREQ element defines a Simple CIM Export request.  It contains an EXPMETHODCALL (export method).

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3.2.6.17. EXPMETHODCALL

The EXPMETHODCALL element defines a single export method invocation.  It specifies zero or more  <EXPPARAMVALUE> subelements as the parameter values to be passed to the method.

The NAME attribute defines the name of the export method to be invoked.

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3.2.6.18. MULTIEXPRSP

The MULTIEXPRSP element defines a Multiple CIM Export response.  It contains two or more subelements defining the SIMPLEEXPRSP elements that make up this multiple response.

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3.2.6.19. SIMPLEEXPRSP

The SIMPLEEXPRSP element defines a Simple CIM Export response.  It contains either a EXPMETHODRESPONSE (for export methods) subelement.

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3.2.6.20. EXPMETHODRESPONSE

The EXPMETHODRESPONSE defines the response to a single export method invocation.  It contains either an ERROR subelement (to report a fundamental error which prevented the method from executing), or an optional return value.

The NAME attribute defines the name of the export method that was invoked.

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3.2.6.21. EXPPARAMVALUE

The NAME attribute defines the name of the parameter.

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4. References

1. "Common Information Model (CIM) Specification", Version 2.0, DMTF, 3^rd March 1998 (http://www.dmtf.org/standards/standard_cim.php)
2. "Extensible Markup Language (XML)", Version 1.0, W3C Recommendation (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml)
3. "Namespaces in XML", 14^th January 1999, W3C Recommendation (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names)
4. "XML Linking Language (XLink)", 3^rd March 1998, W3C Working Draft (http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xlink
5. "XML as a Representation for Management Information - A White Paper", Version 1.0, DMTF, September 15^th 1998 (http://www.dmtf.org/standards/xmlw.php)
6. "Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1", W3C Recommendation 17^th December 1996 (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1)
7. "Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2", W3C Recommendation, 12^th May 1998 (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2)
8. "XSL Transformations (XSLT)", Version 1.0, W3C Working Draft, 21^st April 1999 (http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xsltl)
9. "Specification for CIM Operations over HTTP", Version 1.2 (http://www.dmtf.org/standards/wbem/DSP0200.html)
10. "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", IETF RFC 2119, March 1997 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt)
11. "CIM XML DTD", Version 2.2 (http://www.dmtf.org/standards/wbem/CIM_DTD_V22.dtd)

Appendix A: Change History