Event definitions are comprised of several types of information.
An event definition contains several kinds of information:
- Name
- The name of the event definition, which is the same as the extension name
of the events described by the definition. All events with a particular extension
name share the same event definition.
- Parent
- The name of the parent event definition. Any event definition (with the
exception of the root definition event) has a parent event
definition from which it inherits property descriptions and extended data
element descriptions (although some aspects of the inherited data can be overridden).
The parent can be any valid event definition that exists in the event catalog.
- Property descriptions
- Descriptions of the permitted Common Base Event properties for the event
definition. A property description can describe any property defined in the
Common Base Event specification as a simple type, including properties of
complex subelements.
- Extended data element descriptions
- Descriptions of the permitted extended data elements for the event definition.
An extended data element description defines the name and type of the extended
data element; it can also define default values, how many of the extended
data element are allowed, and descriptions of child extended data elements.
Represented as an XML document, an event definition takes the following
general form:
<eventDefinition name="eventDefinitionName"
parent="parentEventDefinitionName">
<property name="propertyName" ... />
<extendedDataElement name="extendedDataElementName"
type="type" ... />
</eventDefinition>