Qualified code, QCode

A concept URI represented by a string of the form sss:ccc, where sss is a scheme alias and ccc is a code. Examples are iso4217:USD, rfc3066:zh-Hant, nc:15062000, nasdaq:msft and cusip:594918104.

A QCode is not the same as a QName (qualified name) as defined in W3C: Namespaces in XML (http:/ /www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/), though there are substantial similarities. The two main differences are: (i) the code does not have to be a valid XML name (e.g. the code can start with a digit), and (ii) the scheme alias does not have to be declared using a namespace declaration.