Deprecate dataDictionary.dictionaryFormat

[stansmith907]

The dataDictionary element dictionaryFormat is not used by any of our supported writer formats that I can see. Since this item continually raises questions about how it is to be used I propose we drop the element.

Since it is not used in any of the of our writers (other than mdJson) it will not cause errors if dropped rather than deprecating. The mdJson reader will simply ignore the item when reading.

[stansmith907]

After more investigation I found (not necessarily remembered) why we have dictionaryFormat. In ISO 19115-2 or in ISO 19115-1 when the dictionary schema is not defined in the metadata, a featureCatalogueCitation can be defined which is the "complete bibliographic reference to one or more external feature catalogues". ISO 19110 FC_FeatureCatalogue has an element functionalLanguage which is define as "formal functional language in which the feature operation formal definition occurs in this feature catalogue." This would become the 'functional language' of the 'feature catalog citation`. It would nice to better associate the 'dictionary format' with the citation, but...

A few new thoughts:

1. Our data dictionary citation is not an array as allowed by ISO.
2. We associate the dictionary citation with the 'being defined' dictionary and don't call attention to it being able to describe external dictionaries or schema.

SOooo, I have NOT removed dictionaryFormat.

[stansmith907]

Here's another thought. I'm thinking we should modify the mdJson schema for dataDictionary now rather than later. Josh and I are both working that section currently - no need to work it twice.

Propose the following:

• [x] change the name of the dictionaryFormat to something a bit more intuitive. However, it could get to be a rather long name. Deprecate dictionaryFormat and add the new element. mdJson reader will handle both elements. Here's where the language/format issue got confused. 'functional language' is an element of 19110 and refers to the schema language. 'locale' is a 19115 element and refers to language(s) and character set(s) used within the catalogue. Some suggestions for the functional language element name are provided below for your vote, add others if you think of anything better:
  • [ ] citedDictionaryFunctionalLanguage
  • [ ] exteralDictionaryFunctionalLanguage
  • [x] dictionaryFunctionalLanguage
• [ ] change dataDictionary.citation to an array. Of course if citation becomes an array 'functional language' would need to apply to all citations. This would constitute a breaking change. Maybe for schema version 3.0.