GS1 namespaces

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• GS1 namespace structure
• GS1 namespace prefix
• XML schema namespace and prefix

GS1 namespace structure

The namespaces in GS1 reflect the context and the major version of the schema components. The GS1 namespaces have the format of the Uniform Resource Names (URN). All URNs have the following structure:
<URN> ::= "urn:" <NID> ":" <NSS>
where :
<NID> is the Namespace Identifier
<NSS> is the Namespace Specific String.

In all the GS1 namespaces, “ean.ucc” is used for the NID. The NSS of all URNs assigned by GS1 have the following hierarchical structure, reflecting the basic context categories and major version number:

urn:ean.ucc:	_____:	_____:	_____:	_____
	BP	IC	GP	Major Version

where:
BP – Business Process
IC – Industry Classification
GP – Geopolitical Context

Note: NSS in GS1 namespaces is case-sensitive, even though in the RFC 2141 is specified as not sensitive.

Every component has all the context categories defined – either specific, global or all. The namespace does not specify the context category if it is global. For example, a component that is common across all geographical regions and industry classifications, within the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN) Business Process has the following namespace: gdsn="urn:ean.ucc:gdsn:2"

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GS1 namespace prefix

GS1 XML schemas do not use any default namespace. The GS1 information components must be assigned to a namespace that reflects the context it was defined in. This namespace (context) should be explicitly specified for each component.

The GS1 standard specifies the standard namespace prefixes. Usually, they are created from the name of the business process:

- "pay" for PAY process, e.g.: pay="urn:ean.ucc:pay:2"
- "align" for ALIGN process, e.g.: align="urn:ean.ucc:align:2"
- "plan" for PLAN process, e.g.: plan="urn:ean.ucc:plan:2"
- "deliver" for DELIVER process, e.g.: deliver="urn:ean.ucc:deliver:2"
- "order" for ORDER process, e.g.: order="urn:ean.ucc:order:2"
- "gdsn" for GLOBAL DATA SYNCHRONISATION process, e.g.: gdsn="urn:ean.ucc:gdsn:2"
- "eanucc" for all schemas COMMON to all the contexts: eanucc="urn:ean.ucc:2"

The local extensions also have their own namespace and standard prefixes, e.g. TradeItem components specific for Sweden use a separate namespace and the "sw" prefix: sw="urn:ean.ucc:align:sweden:2"

For the sake of consistency and interoperability in GS1 system, a single unique namespace prefix should be used for any given namespace-uri. Also, GS1 recommends that for the instance XML documents, if possible, the implementers should use the same namespace prefixes as those used in the standard GS1 XML Schemas.

Although, from the XML syntax point of view, any prefix can be used as long as it points to the correct namespace, assigning non-standard prefixes would compromise the global interoperability of standards.

In addition, certain mapping and processing XML tools are prefix sensitive and use of non-matching prefixes by the business partners causes serious validation and processing problems.

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XML schema namespace and prefix

For the XML schema components, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) URL http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema is used as the namespace. Again, the prefix for that namespace has been standardised in the GS1 System and all the existing schema modules use xsd: for the XML Schema namespace.

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