clarify use of "bomlink" in schema

[jkowalleck]

I am still uncertain which elements allow the use of bomlink.
From use cases it appears to be possible in externalReferences[].url, vulnerabilities[].affects[].ref.
Any where else?

I'd suggest enhancing the schema to make it visible where a bomlink is allowed and where it is not.
This helps tool builders, parsers, and most importantly clarifies this from schema, not only some additional pamphlets/texts.

[stevespringett]

Related to #179

[stevespringett]

vulnerabilities[].affects[].ref is just a string, not a URI, but external references are entirely possible (and recommended)

[jkowalleck]

the thing is, we introduced an extra type alias "refType" for strings, to make it clear that some strings are not alike.

• refType Identifier-DataType for interlinked elements.

in dependencies these the attribute ref are of "refType", in components the bom-ref is of "refType". the dependencies[].ref there is expected to have a counterpart in components[].bom-ref
no bomlink allowed.

the vulnerabilities[].affects[].ref is of "refType", and - AFAIK - allowed to reference a components[].bom-ref, or be a bomlink - which should have a certain format.
So, vulnerabilities[].affects[].ref value can have a counterpart in the current CDX document, nor in another CDX document if it is in the format of a bomlink. This is not clear from the schema,

i propose to introduce a new type "bomlink", a string -alias with a constraint: it must match the pattern
urn:cdx:[0-9a-f]{8}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{12}/[1-9][0-9*]#.+.

1. "urn:cdx:" is hard
2. pattern from serialnumber-uuid-part
3. "/" is hard
4. pattern for integer
5. "#" is hard
6. any non-empty string

This new type "bomlink" should be added wherever a "bomlink" is allowed/expected, so that digesting software authors are aware from reading the schema, that this special string at certain structures can have more meaning.
Otherwise, we would end up with lots of text describing specialties.

I might draft a pullrequest to show how this might look like.

[jkowalleck]

caused #236

[jkowalleck]

@stevespringett wrote here: #229 (comment)

Every URL in CycloneDX can either be a URL or a BOM-Link.

[jkowalleck]

Possibly caused #136