Physical Data Types

DocFlex by itself operates only with its own logical data types. For instance, GOMElement.valueType and GOMAttribute.valueType properties just return the name of such a logical type.

The actual data are provided by the DSM (Data Source Model) Driver, which is a special software module that connects the DocFlex core with a particular external data source (e.g. Javadoc Doclet API). It is the job of that driver to map specific internal data types operated by the data source to the logical types operated by DocFlex.

However, in certain situations, it may be useful to know which exactly data source's physical type is associated with the given element/attribute value. This may allow you to specifically adjust certain processing in the templates.

Some DSM drivers do provide such information.

For example, XML DSM Driver (the one which takes data directly from XML files) can return the name of an XSD primary simple type associated with the given element/attribute value (e.g. "xs:integer" or "xs:anyURI"), when the driver has been initialized with the XML data type information loaded from an XML schema (which describes the particular kind of XML files the driver is adjusted to process).

When the DSM driver provides the name of an internal (data source specific) data type associated with each element/attribute, physicalType property returns that name. Otherwise, the property returns an empty string.