How a namespace works

A namespace contains one or more related procedures. The namespace contains the XML that invokes the functionality of an underlying provider or another procedure. Every namespace procedure has an input schema and (optionally) an output schema. The input schema optionally validates data supplied to the procedure. The output schema defines the format for data returned by the procedure.

All procedures implemented in Microsoft Provisioning System must be part of a namespace registered in Microsoft Provisioning Framework (MPF).

In the following example, the namespace, called New Namespace, contains one procedure, New Request.

<namespace name="New Namespace" 
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <procedure name="New Request" type="write" access="public">
	<execute namespace="Test Namespace" procedure="Write Request">
	<forEach name="organization" root="data" 
		path="organizations/organization"/>
	<before source="organization" destination="executeData">
		<xsl:template match="organization[@type='primary']">
		<primaryOrg>
			<xsl:value-of select="@name"/>
		 </primaryOrg>
		</xsl:template>
		<xsl:template match="organization[@type='secondary']">
		 <secondaryOrg>
			<xsl:value-of select="@name"/>
		</secondaryOrg>
		</xsl:template>
	</before>
	<after source="executeData" destination="data" 
		destinationPath="orgSignup" mode="merge"/>
	</execute>
  </procedure>
</namespace>

In the procedure example:

The execute node calls Write Request, a procedure belonging to the namespace for the Test Namespace provider.
The <forEach>, <before>, and <after> nodes define the XSL transformation. The <forEach> node restricts the range of the search to the request's </data/organizations/organization> nodes. The <xsl> nodes in <before> select the values for the <name> attribute from the source (namely, <organization> nodes of type "primary" and "secondary") and pass them to the destination (the Write Request <executeData> node). Because this operation supplies data to Write Request, it occurs before Write Request is executed. The after node retrieves the name values from the Write Request <executeData> node and merges them into the /<data/orgSignup> of the response.