Versioning is central to SDMX because it guarantees the stability of references to SDMX artefacts. This is of the utmost importance given the sometimes strong dependencies between artefacts, especially in Data Structure Definitions (DSDs).

The document submitted for public review aims at providing guidelines on how to version SDMX artefacts inspired by "semantic versioning", i.e. a formal convention for specifying compatibility between the different versions of a “versionable” artefact (a SDMX artefact that has an associated version number).

The document contains three main recommendations: – numbering system and syntax; – types of artefact changes and their versioning impact; – how versioning works for inter-dependent artefacts.

The document’s appendix contains examples of several types of changes and their versioning impact.

Link to the draft SDMX Versioning guidelines (Version 1.0, October 2015) (! ! ! Deactivated link ! ! ! )

Please send your comments to the SDMX Statistical Working Group (SDMX-SWG) at swg@sdmx.org. Each email message should contain only a limited set of numbered – and possibly homogeneous – comments.