XML Schema Part 0: Primer

W3C Recommendation, 2 May 2001

This version:: http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-0-20010502/
Latest version:: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-0/
Previous version:: http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/PR-xmlschema-0-20010330/
Editor:: David C. Fallside (IBM) fallside@us.ibm.com

Abstract

XML Schema Part 0: Primer is a non-normative document intended to provide an easily readable description of the XML Schema facilities, and is oriented towards quickly understanding how to create schemas using the XML Schema language. XML Schema Part 1: Structures and XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes provide the complete normative description of the XML Schema language. This primer describes the language features through numerous examples which are complemented by extensive references to the normative texts.

Status of this document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. The latest status of this document series is maintained at the W3C.

This document has been reviewed by W3C Members and other interested parties and has been endorsed by the Director as a W3C Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document. W3C's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.

This document has been produced by the W3C XML Schema Working Group as part of the W3C XML Activity. The goals of the XML Schema language are discussed in the XML Schema Requirements document. The authors of this document are the members of the XML Schema Working Group. Different parts of the document have different editors.

This version of this document incorporates some editorial changes from earlier versions.

Please report errors in this document to www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org ( archive). The list of known errors in this specification is available at http://www.w3.org/2001/05/xmlschema-errata.

The English version of this specification is the only normative version. Information about translations of this document is available at http://www.w3.org/2001/05/xmlschema-translations.

A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR.

1 Introduction
2 Basic Concepts: The Purchase Order
2.1 The Purchase Order Schema
2.2 Complex Type Definitions, Element & Attribute Declarations
  2.2.1 Occurrence Constraints
  2.2.2 Global Elements & Attributes
  2.2.3 Naming Conflicts
2.3 Simple Types
  2.3.1 List Types
  2.3.2 Union Types
2.4 Anonymous Type Definitions
2.5 Element Content
  2.5.1 Complex Types from Simple Types
  2.5.2 Mixed Content
  2.5.3 Empty Content
  2.5.4 anyType
2.6 Annotations
2.7 Building Content Models
2.8 Attribute Groups
2.9 Nil Values
3 Advanced Concepts I: Namespaces, Schemas & Qualification
3.1 Target Namespaces & Unqualified Locals
3.2 Qualified Locals
3.3 Global vs. Local Declarations
3.4 Undeclared Target Namespaces
4 Advanced Concepts II: The International Purchase Order
4.1 A Schema in Multiple Documents
4.2 Deriving Types by Extension
4.3 Using Derived Types in Instance Documents
4.4 Deriving Complex Types by Restriction
4.5 Redefining Types & Groups
4.6 Substitution Groups
4.7 Abstract Elements & Types
4.8 Controlling the Creation & Use of Derived Types
5 Advanced Concepts III: The Quarterly Report
5.1 Specifying Uniqueness
5.2 Defining Keys & their References
5.3 XML Schema Constraints vs. XML 1.0 ID Attributes
5.4 Importing Types
  5.4.1 Type Libraries
5.5 Any Element, Any Attribute
5.6 schemaLocation
5.7 Conformance

Appendices

A Acknowledgements
B Simple Types & Their Facets
C Using Entities
D Regular Expressions
E Index

1 Introduction

This document, XML Schema Part 0: Primer, provides an easily approachable description of the XML Schema definition language, and should be used alongside the formal descriptions of the language contained in Parts 1 and 2 of the XML Schema specification. The intended audience of this document includes application developers whose programs read and write schema documents, and schema authors who need to know about the features of the language, especially features that provide functionality above and beyond what is provided by DTDs. The text assumes that you have a basic understanding of XML 1.0 and XML-Namespaces. Each major section of the primer introduces new features of the language, and describes those features in the context of concrete examples.

Section 2 covers the basic mechanisms of XML Schema. It describes how to declare the elements and attributes that appear in XML documents, the distinctions between simple and complex types, defining complex types, the use of simple types for element and attribute values, schema annotation, a simple mechanism for re-using element and attribute definitions, and nil values.

Section 3, the first advanced section in the primer, explains the basics of how namespaces are used in XML and schema documents. This section is important for understanding many of the topics that appear in the other advanced sections.

Section 4, the second advanced section in the primer, describes mechanisms for deriving types from existing types, and for controlling these derivations. The section also describes mechanisms for merging together fragments of a schema from multiple sources, and for element substitution.

Section 5 covers more advanced features, including a mechanism for specifying uniqueness among attributes and elements, a mechanism for using types across namespaces, a mechanism for extending types based on namespaces, and a description of how documents are checked for conformance.

In addition to the sections just described, the primer contains a number of appendices that provide detailed reference information on simple types and a regular expression language.

The primer is a non-normative document, which means that it does not provide a definitive (from the W3C's point of view) specification of the XML Schema language. The examples and other explanatory material in this document are provided to help you understand XML Schema, but they may not always provide definitive answers. In such cases, you will need to refer to the XML Schema specification, and to help you do this, we provide many links pointing to the relevant parts of the specification. More specifically, XML Schema items mentioned in the primer text are linked to an index of element names and attributes, and a summary table of datatypes, both in the primer. The table and the index contain links to the relevant sections of XML Schema parts 1 and 2.

2 Basic Concepts: The Purchase Order

The purpose of a schema is to define a class of XML documents, and so the term "instance document" is often used to describe an XML document that conforms to a particular schema. In fact, neither instances nor schemas need to exist as documents per se -- they may exist as streams of bytes sent between applications, as fields in a database record, or as collections of XML Infoset "Information Items" -- but to simplify the primer, we have chosen to always refer to instances and schemas as if they are documents and files.

Let us start by considering an instance document in a file called po.xml. It describes a purchase order generated by a home products ordering and billing application:

The Purchase Order, po.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<purchaseOrder orderDate="1999-10-20">
    <shipTo country="US">
        <name>Alice Smith</name>
        <street>123 Maple Street</street>
        <city>Mill Valley</city>
        <state>CA</state>
        <zip>90952</zip>
    </shipTo>
    <billTo country="US">
        <name>Robert Smith</name>
        <street>8 Oak Avenue</street>
        <city>Old Town</city>
        <state>PA</state>
        <zip>95819</zip>
    </billTo>
    <comment>Hurry, my lawn is going wild!</comment>
    <items>
        <item partNum="872-AA">
            <productName>Lawnmower</productName>
            <quantity>1</quantity>
            <USPrice>148.95</USPrice>
            <comment>Confirm this is electric</comment>
        </item>
        <item partNum="926-AA">
            <productName>Baby Monitor</productName>
            <quantity>1</quantity>
            <USPrice>39.98</USPrice>
            <shipDate>1999-05-21</shipDate>
        </item>
    </items>
</purchaseOrder>

The purchase order consists of a main element, purchaseOrder, and the subelements shipTo, billTo, comment, and items. These subelements (except comment) in turn contain other subelements, and so on, until a subelement such as USPrice contains a number rather than any subelements. Elements that contain subelements or carry attributes are said to have complex types, whereas elements that contain numbers (and strings, and dates, etc.) but do not contain any subelements are said to have simple types. Some elements have attributes; attributes always have simple types.

The complex types in the instance document, and some of the simple types, are defined in the schema for purchase orders. The other simple types are defined as part of XML Schema's repertoire of built-in simple types.

Before going on to examine the purchase order schema, we digress briefly to mention the association between the instance document and the purchase order schema. As you can see by inspecting the instance document, the purchase order schema is not mentioned. An instance is not actually required to reference a schema, and although many will, we have chosen to keep this first section simple, and to assume that any processor of the instance document can obtain the purchase order schema without any information from the instance document. In later sections, we will introduce explicit mechanisms for associating instances and schemas.

2.1 The Purchase Order Schema

The purchase order schema is contained in the file po.xsd:

The Purchase Order Schema, po.xsd

<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

 <xsd:annotation>
  <xsd:documentation xml:lang="en">
   Purchase order schema for Example.com.
   Copyright 2000 Example.com. All rights reserved.
  </xsd:documentation>
 </xsd:annotation>

 <xsd:element name="purchaseOrder" type="PurchaseOrderType"/>

 <xsd:element name="comment" type="xsd:string"/>

 <xsd:complexType name="PurchaseOrderType">
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="shipTo" type="USAddress"/>
   <xsd:element name="billTo" type="USAddress"/>
   <xsd:element ref="comment" minOccurs="0"/>
   <xsd:element name="items"  type="Items"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
  <xsd:attribute name="orderDate" type="xsd:date"/>
 </xsd:complexType>

 <xsd:complexType name="USAddress">
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="name"   type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="street" type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="city"   type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="state"  type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="zip"    type="xsd:decimal"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
  <xsd:attribute name="country" type="xsd:NMTOKEN"
     fixed="US"/>
 </xsd:complexType>

 <xsd:complexType name="Items">
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="item" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
    <xsd:complexType>
     <xsd:sequence>
      <xsd:element name="productName" type="xsd:string"/>
      <xsd:element name="quantity">
       <xsd:simpleType>
        <xsd:restriction base="xsd:positiveInteger">
         <xsd:maxExclusive value="100"/>
        </xsd:restriction>
       </xsd:simpleType>
      </xsd:element>
      <xsd:element name="USPrice"  type="xsd:decimal"/>
      <xsd:element ref="comment"   minOccurs="0"/>
      <xsd:element name="shipDate" type="xsd:date" minOccurs="0"/>
     </xsd:sequence>
     <xsd:attribute name="partNum" type="SKU" use="required"/>
    </xsd:complexType>
   </xsd:element>
  </xsd:sequence>
 </xsd:complexType>

 <!-- Stock Keeping Unit, a code for identifying products -->
 <xsd:simpleType name="SKU">
  <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
   <xsd:pattern value="\d{3}-[A-Z]{2}"/>
  </xsd:restriction>
 </xsd:simpleType>

</xsd:schema>

The purchase order schema consists of a schema element and a variety of subelements, most notably element, complexType, and simpleType which determine the appearance of elements and their content in instance documents.

Each of the elements in the schema has a prefix xsd: which is associated with the XML Schema namespace through the declaration, xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema", that appears in the schema element. The prefix xsd: is used by convention to denote the XML Schema namespace, although any prefix can be used. The same prefix, and hence the same association, also appears on the names of built-in simple types, e.g. xsd:string. The purpose of the association is to identify the elements and simple types as belonging to the vocabulary of the XML Schema language rather than the vocabulary of the schema author. For the sake of clarity in the text, we just mention the names of elements and simple types (e.g. simpleType), and omit the prefix.

2.2 Complex Type Definitions, Element & Attribute Declarations

In XML Schema, there is a basic difference between complex types which allow elements in their content and may carry attributes, and simple types which cannot have element content and cannot carry attributes. There is also a major distinction between definitions which create new types (both simple and complex), and declarations which enable elements and attributes with specific names and types (both simple and complex) to appear in document instances. In this section, we focus on defining complex types and declaring the elements and attributes that appear within them.

New complex types are defined using the complexType element and such definitions typically contain a set of element declarations, element references, and attribute declarations. The declarations are not themselves types, but rather an association between a name and the constraints which govern the appearance of that name in documents governed by the associated schema. Elements are declared using the element element, and attributes are declared using the attribute element. For example, USAddress is defined as a complex type, and within the definition of USAddress we see five element declarations and one attribute declaration:

Defining the USAddress Type

 <xsd:complexType name="USAddress" >
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="name"   type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="street" type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="city"   type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="state"  type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="zip"    type="xsd:decimal"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
  <xsd:attribute name="country" type="xsd:NMTOKEN" fixed="US"/>
 </xsd:complexType>

The consequence of this definition is that any element appearing in an instance whose type is declared to be USAddress (e.g. shipTo in po.xml) must consist of five elements and one attribute. These elements must be called name, street, city, state and zip as specified by the values of the declarations' name attributes, and the elements must appear in the same sequence (order) in which they are declared. The first four of these elements will each contain a string, and the fifth will contain a number. The element whose type is declared to be USAddress may appear with an attribute called country which must contain the string US.

The USAddress definition contains only declarations involving the simple types: string, decimal and NMTOKEN. In contrast, the PurchaseOrderType definition contains element declarations involving complex types, e.g. USAddress, although note that both declarations use the same type attribute to identify the type, regardless of whether the type is simple or complex.

Defining PurchaseOrderType

 <xsd:complexType name="PurchaseOrderType">
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="shipTo" type="USAddress"/>
   <xsd:element name="billTo" type="USAddress"/>
   <xsd:element ref="comment" minOccurs="0"/>
   <xsd:element name="items"  type="Items"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
  <xsd:attribute name="orderDate" type="xsd:date"/>
 </xsd:complexType>

In defining PurchaseOrderType, two of the element declarations, for shipTo and billTo, associate different element names with the same complex type, namely USAddress. The consequence of this definition is that any element appearing in an instance document (e.g. po.xml) whose type is declared to be PurchaseOrderType must consist of elements named shipTo and billTo, each containing the five subelements (name, street, city, state and zip) that were declared as part of USAddress. The shipTo and billTo elements may also carry the country attribute that was declared as part of USAddress.

The PurchaseOrderType definition contains an orderDate attribute declaration which, like the country attribute declaration, identifies a simple type. In fact, all attribute declarations must reference simple types because, unlike element declarations, attributes cannot contain other elements or other attributes.

The element declarations we have described so far have each associated a name with an existing type definition. Sometimes it is preferable to use an existing element rather than declare a new element, for example:

<xsd:element ref="comment" minOccurs="0"/>

This declaration references an existing element, comment, that was declared elsewhere in the purchase order schema. In general, the value of the ref attribute must reference a global element, i.e. one that has been declared under schema rather than as part of a complex type definition. The consequence of this declaration is that an element called comment may appear in an instance document, and its content must be consistent with that element's type, in this case, string.

2.2.1 Occurrence Constraints

The comment element is optional within PurchaseOrderType because the value of the minOccurs attribute in its declaration is 0. In general, an element is required to appear when the value of minOccurs is 1 or more. The maximum number of times an element may appear is determined by the value of a maxOccurs attribute in its declaration. This value may be a positive integer such as 41, or the term unbounded to indicate there is no maximum number of occurrences. The default value for both the minOccurs and the maxOccurs attributes is 1. Thus, when an element such as comment is declared without a maxOccurs attribute, the element may not occur more than once. Be sure that if you specify a value for only the minOccurs attribute, it is less than or equal to the default value of maxOccurs, i.e. it is 0 or 1. Similarly, if you specify a value for only the maxOccurs attribute, it must be greater than or equal to the default value of minOccurs, i.e. 1 or more. If both attributes are omitted, the element must appear exactly once.

Attributes may appear once or not at all, but no other number of times, and so the syntax for specifying occurrences of attributes is different than the syntax for elements. In particular, attributes can be declared with a use attribute to indicate whether the attribute is required (see for example, the partNum attribute declaration in po.xsd), optional, or even prohibited.

Default values of both attributes and elements are declared using the default attribute, although this attribute has a slightly different consequence in each case. When an attribute is declared with a default value, the value of the attribute is whatever value appears as the attribute's value in an instance document; if the attribute does not appear in the instance document, the schema processor provides the attribute with a value equal to that of the default attribute. Note that default values for attributes only make sense if the attributes themselves are optional, and so it is an error to specify both a default value and anything other than a value of optional for use.

The schema processor treats defaulted elements slightly differently. When an element is declared with a default value, the value of the element is whatever value appears as the element's content in the instance document; if the element appears without any content, the schema processor provides the element with a value equal to that of the default attribute. However, if the element does not appear in the instance document, the schema processor does not provide the element at all. In summary, the differences between element and attribute defaults can be stated as: Default attribute values apply when attributes are missing, and default element values apply when elements are empty.

The fixed attribute is used in both attribute and element declarations to ensure that the attributes and elements are set to particular values. For example, po.xsd contains a declaration for the country attribute, which is declared with a fixed value US. This declaration means that the appearance of a country attribute in an instance document is optional (the default value of use is optional), although if the attribute does appear, its value must be US, and if the attribute does not appear, the schema processor will provide a country attribute with the value US. Note that the concepts of a fixed value and a default value are mutually exclusive, and so it is an error for a declaration to contain both fixed and default attributes.

The values of the attributes used in element and attribute declarations to constrain their occurrences are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Occurrence Constraints for Elements and Attributes
Elements (minOccurs, maxOccurs) fixed, default	Attributes use, fixed, default	Notes
(1, 1) -, -	required, -, -	element/attribute must appear once, it may have any value
(1, 1) 37, -	required, 37, -	element/attribute must appear once, its value must be 37
(2, unbounded) 37, -	n/a	element must appear twice or more, its value must be 37; in general, minOccurs and maxOccurs values may be positive integers, and maxOccurs value may also be "unbounded"
(0, 1) -, -	optional, -, -	element/attribute may appear once, it may have any value
(0, 1) 37, -	optional, 37, -	element/attribute may appear once, if it does appear its value must be 37, if it does not appear its value is 37
(0, 1) -, 37	optional, -, 37	element/attribute may appear once; if it does not appear its value is 37, otherwise its value is that given
(0, 2) -, 37	n/a	element may appear once, twice, or not at all; if the element does not appear it is not provided; if it does appear and it is empty, its value is 37; otherwise its value is that given; in general, minOccurs and maxOccurs values may be positive integers, and maxOccurs value may also be "unbounded"
(0, 0) -, -	prohibited, -, -	element/attribute must not appear
Note that neither minOccurs, maxOccurs, nor use may appear in the declarations of global elements and attributes.

2.2.2 Global Elements & Attributes

Global elements, and global attributes, are created by declarations that appear as the children of the schema element. Once declared, a global element or a global attribute can be referenced in one or more declarations using the ref attribute as described above. A declaration that references a global element enables the referenced element to appear in the instance document in the context of the referencing declaration. So, for example, the comment element appears in po.xml at the same level as the shipTo, billTo and items elements because the declaration that references comment appears in the complex type definition at the same level as the declarations of the other three elements.

The declaration of a global element also enables the element to appear at the top-level of an instance document. Hence purchaseOrder, which is declared as a global element in po.xsd, can appear as the top-level element in po.xml. Note that this rationale will also allow a comment element to appear as the top-level element in a document like po.xml.

There are a number of caveats concerning the use of global elements and attributes. One caveat is that global declarations cannot contain references; global declarations must identify simple and complex types directly. Put concretely, global declarations cannot contain the ref attribute, they must use the type attribute (or, as we describe shortly, be followed by an anonymous type definition). A second caveat is that cardinality constraints cannot be placed on global declarations, although they can be placed on local declarations that reference global declarations. In other words, global declarations cannot contain the attributes minOccurs, maxOccurs, or use.

2.2.3 Naming Conflicts

We have now described how to define new complex types (e.g. PurchaseOrderType), declare elements (e.g. purchaseOrder) and declare attributes (e.g. orderDate). These activities generally involve naming, and so the question naturally arises: What happens if we give two things the same name? The answer depends upon the two things in question, although in general the more similar are the two things, the more likely there will be a conflict.

Here are some examples to illustrate when same names cause problems. If the two things are both types, say we define a complex type called USStates and a simple type called USStates, there is a conflict. If the two things are a type and an element or attribute, say we define a complex type called USAddress and we declare an element called USAddress, there is no conflict. If the two things are elements within different types (i.e. not global elements), say we declare one element called name as part of the USAddress type and a second element called name as part of the Item type, there is no conflict. (Such elements are sometimes called local element declarations.) Finally, if the two things are both types and you define one and XML Schema has defined the other, say you define a simple type called decimal, there is no conflict. The reason for the apparent contradiction in the last example is that the two types belong to different namespaces. We explore the use of namespaces in schema in a later section.

2.3 Simple Types

The purchase order schema declares several elements and attributes that have simple types. Some of these simple types, such as string and decimal, are built in to XML Schema, while others are derived from the built-in's. For example, the partNum attribute has a type called SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) that is derived from string. Both built-in simple types and their derivations can be used in all element and attribute declarations. Table 2 lists all the simple types built in to XML Schema, along with examples of the different types.

Table 2. Simple Types Built In to XML Schema
Simple Type	Examples (delimited by commas)	Notes
string	Confirm this is electric
normalizedString	Confirm this is electric	see (3)
token	Confirm this is electric	see (4)
byte	-1, 126	see (2)
unsignedByte	0, 126	see (2)
base64Binary	GpM7
hexBinary	0FB7
integer	-126789, -1, 0, 1, 126789	see (2)
positiveInteger	1, 126789	see (2)
negativeInteger	-126789, -1	see (2)
nonNegativeInteger	0, 1, 126789	see (2)
nonPositiveInteger	-126789, -1, 0	see (2)
int	-1, 126789675	see (2)
unsignedInt	0, 1267896754	see (2)
long	-1, 12678967543233	see (2)
unsignedLong	0, 12678967543233	see (2)
short	-1, 12678	see (2)
unsignedShort	0, 12678	see (2)
decimal	-1.23, 0, 123.4, 1000.00	see (2)
float	-INF, -1E4, -0, 0, 12.78E-2, 12, INF, NaN	equivalent to single-precision 32-bit floating point, NaN is "not a number", see (2)
double	-INF, -1E4, -0, 0, 12.78E-2, 12, INF, NaN	equivalent to double-precision 64-bit floating point, see (2)
boolean	true, false 1, 0
time	13:20:00.000, 13:20:00.000-05:00	see (2)
dateTime	1999-05-31T13:20:00.000-05:00	May 31st 1999 at 1.20pm Eastern Standard Time which is 5 hours behind Co-Ordinated Universal Time, see (2)
duration	P1Y2M3DT10H30M12.3S	1 year, 2 months, 3 days, 10 hours, 30 minutes, and 12.3 seconds
date	1999-05-31	see (2)
gMonth	--05--	May, see (2) (5)
gYear	1999	1999, see (2) (5)
gYearMonth	1999-02	the month of February 1999, regardless of the number of days, see (2) (5)
gDay	---31	the 31st day, see (2) (5)
gMonthDay	--05-31	every May 31st, see (2) (5)
Name	shipTo	XML 1.0 Name type
QName	po:USAddress	XML Namespace QName
NCName	USAddress	XML Namespace NCName, i.e. a QName without the prefix and colon
anyURI	http://www.example.com/, http://www.example.com/doc.html#ID5
language	en-GB, en-US, fr	valid values for xml:lang as defined in XML 1.0
ID		XML 1.0 ID attribute type, see (1)
IDREF		XML 1.0 IDREF attribute type, see (1)
IDREFS		XML 1.0 IDREFS attribute type, see (1)
ENTITY		XML 1.0 ENTITY attribute type, see (1)
ENTITIES		XML 1.0 ENTITIES attribute type, see (1)
NOTATION		XML 1.0 NOTATION attribute type, see (1)
NMTOKEN	US, Brésil	XML 1.0 NMTOKEN attribute type, see (1)
NMTOKENS	US UK, Brésil Canada Mexique	XML 1.0 NMTOKENS attribute type, i.e. a whitespace separated list of NMTOKEN's, see (1)
Notes: (1) To retain compatibility between XML Schema and XML 1.0 DTDs, the simple types ID, IDREF, IDREFS, ENTITY, ENTITIES, NOTATION, NMTOKEN, NMTOKENS should only be used in attributes. (2) A value of this type can be represented by more than one lexical format, e.g. 100 and 1.0E2 are both valid float formats representing "one hundred". However, rules have been established for this type that define a canonical lexical format, see XML Schema Part 2. (3) Newline, tab and carriage-return characters in a normalizedString type are converted to space characters before schema processing. (4) As normalizedString, and adjacent space characters are collapsed to a single space character, and leading and trailing spaces are removed. (5) The "g" prefix signals time periods in the Gregorian calender.

New simple types are defined by deriving them from existing simple types (built-in's and derived). In particular, we can derive a new simple type by restricting an existing simple type, in other words, the legal range of values for the new type are a subset of the existing type's range of values. We use the simpleType element to define and name the new simple type. We use the restriction element to indicate the existing (base) type, and to identify the "facets" that constrain the range of values. A complete list of facets is provided in Appendix B.

Suppose we wish to create a new type of integer called myInteger whose range of values is between 10000 and 99999 (inclusive). We base our definition on the built-in simple type integer, whose range of values also includes integers less than 10000 and greater than 99999. To define myInteger, we restrict the range of the integer base type by employing two facets called minInclusive and maxInclusive:

Defining myInteger, Range 10000-99999

<xsd:simpleType name="myInteger">
  <xsd:restriction base="xsd:integer">
    <xsd:minInclusive value="10000"/>
    <xsd:maxInclusive value="99999"/>
  </xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType>

The example shows one particular combination of a base type and two facets used to define myInteger, but a look at the list of built-in simple types and their facets (Appendix B) should suggest other viable combinations.

The purchase order schema contains another, more elaborate, example of a simple type definition. A new simple type called SKU is derived (by restriction) from the simple type string. Furthermore, we constrain the values of SKU using a facet called pattern in conjunction with the regular expression "\d{3}-[A-Z]{2}" that is read "three digits followed by a hyphen followed by two upper-case ASCII letters":

Defining the Simple Type "SKU"

<xsd:simpleType name="SKU">
  <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
    <xsd:pattern value="\d{3}-[A-Z]{2}"/>
  </xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType>

This regular expression language is described more fully in Appendix D.

XML Schema defines fifteen facets which are listed in Appendix B. Among these, the enumeration facet is particularly useful and it can be used to constrain the values of almost every simple type, except the boolean type. The enumeration facet limits a simple type to a set of distinct values. For example, we can use the enumeration facet to define a new simple type called USState, derived from string, whose value must be one of the standard US state abbreviations:

Using the Enumeration Facet

<xsd:simpleType name="USState">
  <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
    <xsd:enumeration value="AK"/>
    <xsd:enumeration value="AL"/>
    <xsd:enumeration value="AR"/>
    <!-- and so on ... -->
  </xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType>

USState would be a good replacement for the string type currently used in the state element declaration. By making this replacement, the legal values of a state element, i.e. the state subelements of billTo and shipTo, would be limited to one of AK, AL, AR, etc. Note that the enumeration values specified for a particular type must be unique.

2.3.1 List Types

XML Schema has the concept of a list type, in addition to the so-called atomic types that constitute most of the types listed in Table 2. (Atomic types, list types, and the union types described in the next section are collectively called simple types.) The value of an atomic type is indivisible from XML Schema's perspective. For example, the NMTOKEN value US is indivisible in the sense that no part of US, such as the character "S", has any meaning by itself. In contrast, list types are comprised of sequences of atomic types and consequently the parts of a sequence (the "atoms") themselves are meaningful. For example, NMTOKENS is a list type, and an element of this type would be a white-space delimited list of NMTOKEN's, such as "US UK FR". XML Schema has three built-in list types, they are NMTOKENS, IDREFS, and ENTITIES.

In addition to using the built-in list types, you can create new list types by derivation from existing atomic types. (You cannot create list types from existing list types, nor from complex types.) For example, to create a list of myInteger's:

Creating a List of myInteger's

<xsd:simpleType name="listOfMyIntType">
  <xsd:list itemType="myInteger"/>
</xsd:simpleType>

And an element in an instance document whose content conforms to listOfMyIntType is:

<listOfMyInt>20003 15037 95977 95945</listOfMyInt>

Several facets can be applied to list types: length, minLength, maxLength, and enumeration. For example, to define a list of exactly six US states (SixUSStates), we first define a new list type called USStateList from USState, and then we derive SixUSStates by restricting USStateList to only six items:

List Type for Six US States

<xsd:simpleType name="USStateList">
 <xsd:list itemType="USState"/>
</xsd:simpleType>

<xsd:simpleType name="SixUSStates">
 <xsd:restriction base="USStateList">
  <xsd:length value="6"/>
 </xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType>

Elements whose type is SixUSStates must have six items, and each of the six items must be one of the (atomic) values of the enumerated type USState, for example:

<sixStates>PA NY CA NY LA AK</sixStates>

Note that it is possible to derive a list type from the atomic type string. However, a string may contain white space, and white space delimits the items in a list type, so you should be careful using list types whose base type is string. For example, suppose we have defined a list type with a length facet equal to 3, and base type string, then the following 3 item list is legal:

Asie Europe Afrique

But the following 3 "item" list is illegal:

Asie Europe Amérique Latine

Even though "Amérique Latine" may exist as a single string outside of the list, when it is included in the list, the whitespace between Amérique and Latine effectively creates a fourth item, and so the latter example will not conform to the 3-item list type.

2.3.2 Union Types

Atomic types and list types enable an element or an attribute value to be one or more instances of one atomic type. In contrast, a union type enables an element or attribute value to be one or more instances of one type drawn from the union of multiple atomic and list types. To illustrate, we create a union type for representing American states as singleton letter abbreviations or lists of numeric codes. The zipUnion union type is built from one atomic type and one list type:

Union Type for Zipcodes

<xsd:simpleType name="zipUnion">
  <xsd:union memberTypes="USState listOfMyIntType"/>
</xsd:simpleType>

When we define a union type, the memberTypes attribute value is a list of all the types in the union.

Now, assuming we have declared an element called zips of type zipUnion, valid instances of the element are:

<zips>CA</zips>
<zips>95630 95977 95945</zips>
<zips>AK</zips>

Two facets, pattern and enumeration, can be applied to a union type.

2.4 Anonymous Type Definitions

Schemas can be constructed by defining sets of named types such as PurchaseOrderType and then declaring elements such as purchaseOrder that reference the types using the type= construction. This style of schema construction is straightforward but it can be unwieldy, especially if you define many types that are referenced only once and contain very few constraints. In these cases, a type can be more succinctly defined as an anonymous type which saves the overhead of having to be named and explicitly referenced.

The definition of the type Items in po.xsd contains two element declarations that use anonymous types (item and quantity). In general, you can identify anonymous types by the lack of a type= in an element (or attribute) declaration, and by the presence of an un-named (simple or complex) type definition:

Two Anonymous Type Definitions

<xsd:complexType name="Items">
 <xsd:sequence>
  <xsd:element name="item" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
   <xsd:complexType>
    <xsd:sequence>
     <xsd:element name="productName" type="xsd:string"/>
     <xsd:element name="quantity">
      <xsd:simpleType>
       <xsd:restriction base="xsd:positiveInteger">
        <xsd:maxExclusive value="100"/>
       </xsd:restriction>
      </xsd:simpleType>
     </xsd:element>
     <xsd:element name="USPrice"  type="xsd:decimal"/>
     <xsd:element ref="comment"   minOccurs="0"/>
     <xsd:element name="shipDate" type="xsd:date" minOccurs="0"/>
    </xsd:sequence>
    <xsd:attribute name="partNum" type="SKU" use="required"/>
   </xsd:complexType>
  </xsd:element>
 </xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>

In the case of the item element, it has an anonymous complex type consisting of the elements productName, quantity, USPrice, comment, and shipDate, and an attribute called partNum. In the case of the quantity element, it has an anonymous simple type derived from integer whose value ranges between 1 and 99.

2.5 Element Content

The purchase order schema has many examples of elements containing other elements (e.g. items), elements having attributes and containing other elements (e.g. shipTo), and elements containing only a simple type of value (e.g. USPrice). However, we have not seen an element having attributes but containing only a simple type of value, nor have we seen an element that contains other elements mixed with character content, nor have we seen an element that has no content at all. In this section we'll examine these variations in the content models of elements.

2.5.1 Complex Types from Simple Types

Let us first consider how to declare an element that has an attribute and contains a simple value. In an instance document, such an element might appear as:

<internationalPrice currency="EUR">423.46</internationalPrice>

The purchase order schema declares a USPrice element that is a starting point:

<xsd:element name="USPrice" type="decimal"/>

Now, how do we add an attribute to this element? As we have said before, simple types cannot have attributes, and decimal is a simple type. Therefore, we must define a complex type to carry the attribute declaration. We also want the content to be simple type decimal. So our original question becomes: How do we define a complex type that is based on the simple type decimal? The answer is to derive a new complex type from the simple type decimal:

Deriving a Complex Type from a Simple Type

 <xsd:element name="internationalPrice">
  <xsd:complexType>
   <xsd:simpleContent>
    <xsd:extension base="xsd:decimal">
     <xsd:attribute name="currency" type="xsd:string"/>
    </xsd:extension>
   </xsd:simpleContent>
  </xsd:complexType>
 </xsd:element>

We use the complexType element to start the definition of a new (anonymous) type. To indicate that the content model of the new type contains only character data and no elements, we use a simpleContent element. Finally, we derive the new type by extending the simple decimal type. The extension consists of adding a currency attribute using a standard attribute declaration. (We cover type derivation in detail in Section 4.) The internationalPrice element declared in this way will appear in an instance as shown in the example at the beginning of this section.

2.5.2 Mixed Content

The construction of the purchase order schema may be characterized as elements containing subelements, and the deepest subelements contain character data. XML Schema also provides for the construction of schemas where character data can appear alongside subelements, and character data is not confined to the deepest subelements.

To illustrate, consider the following snippet from a customer letter that uses some of the same elements as the purchase order:

Snippet of Customer Letter

<letterBody>
<salutation>Dear Mr.<name>Robert Smith</name>.</salutation>
Your order of <quantity>1</quantity> <productName>Baby
Monitor</productName> shipped from our warehouse on
<shipDate>1999-05-21</shipDate>. ....
</letterBody>

Notice the text appearing between elements and their child elements. Specifically, text appears between the elements salutation, quantity, productName and shipDate which are all children of letterBody, and text appears around the element name which is the child of a child of letterBody. The following snippet of a schema declares letterBody:

Snippet of Schema for Customer Letter

<xsd:element name="letterBody">
 <xsd:complexType mixed="true">
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="salutation">
    <xsd:complexType mixed="true">
     <xsd:sequence>
      <xsd:element name="name" type="xsd:string"/>
     </xsd:sequence>
    </xsd:complexType>
   </xsd:element>
   <xsd:element name="quantity"    type="xsd:positiveInteger"/>
   <xsd:element name="productName" type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="shipDate"    type="xsd:date" minOccurs="0"/>
   <!-- etc. -->
  </xsd:sequence>
 </xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>

The elements appearing in the customer letter are declared, and their types are defined using the element and complexType element constructions we have seen before. To enable character data to appear between the child-elements of letterBody, the mixed attribute on the type definition is set to true.

Note that the mixed model in XML Schema differs fundamentally from the mixed model in XML 1.0. Under the XML Schema mixed model, the order and number of child elements appearing in an instance must agree with the order and number of child elements specified in the model. In contrast, under the XML 1.0 mixed model, the order and number of child elements appearing in an instance cannot be constrained. In summary, XML Schema provides full validation of mixed models in contrast to the partial schema validation provided by XML 1.0.

2.5.3 Empty Content

Now suppose that we want the internationalPrice element to convey both the unit of currency and the price as attribute values rather than as separate attribute and content values. For example:

<internationalPrice currency="EUR" value="423.46"/>

Such an element has no content at all; its content model is empty. To define a type whose content is empty, we essentially define a type that allows only elements in its content, but we do not actually declare any elements and so the type's content model is empty:

An Empty Complex Type

<xsd:element name="internationalPrice">
 <xsd:complexType>
  <xsd:complexContent>
   <xsd:restriction base="xsd:anyType">
    <xsd:attribute name="currency" type="xsd:string"/>
    <xsd:attribute name="value"    type="xsd:decimal"/>
   </xsd:restriction>
  </xsd:complexContent>
 </xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>

In this example, we define an (anonymous) type having complexContent, i.e. only elements. The complexContent element signals that we intend to restrict or extend the content model of a complex type, and the restriction of anyType declares two attributes but does not introduce any element content (see Section 4.4 for more details on restriction). The internationalPrice element declared in this way may legitimately appear in an instance as shown in the example above.

The preceding syntax for an empty-content element is relatively verbose, and it is possible to declare the internationalPrice element more compactly:

Shorthand for an Empty Complex Type

<xsd:element name="internationalPrice">
 <xsd:complexType>
  <xsd:attribute name="currency" type="xsd:string"/>
  <xsd:attribute name="value"    type="xsd:decimal"/>
 </xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>

This compact syntax works because a complex type defined without any simpleContent or complexContent is interpreted as shorthand for complex content that restricts anyType.

2.5.4 anyType

The anyType represents an abstraction called the ur-type which is the base type from which all simple and complex types are derived. An anyType type does not constrain its content in any way. It is possible to use anyType like other types, for example:

<xsd:element name="anything" type="xsd:anyType"/>

The content of the element declared in this way is unconstrained, so the element value may be 423.46, but it may be any other sequence of characters as well, or indeed a mixture of characters and elements. In fact, anyType is the default type when none is specified, so the above could also be written as follows:

<xsd:element name="anything"/>

If unconstrained element content is needed, for example in the case of elements containing prose which requires embedded markup to support internationalization, then the default declaration or a slightly restricted form of it may be suitable. The text type described in Section 5.5 is an example of such a type that is suitable for such purposes.

2.6 Annotations

XML Schema provides three elements for annotating schemas for the benefit of both human readers and applications. In the purchase order schema, we put a basic schema description and copyright information inside the documentation element, which is the recommended location for human readable material. We recommend you use the xml:lang attribute with any documentation elements to indicate the language of the information. Alternatively, you may indicate the language of all information in a schema by placing an xml:lang attribute on the schema element.

The appInfo element, which we did not use in the purchase order schema, can be used to provide information for tools, stylesheets and other applications. An interesting example using appInfo is a schema that describes the simple types in XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. Information describing this schema, e.g. which facets are applicable to particular simple types, is represented inside appInfo elements, and this information was used by an application to automatically generate text for the XML Schema Part 2 document.

Both documentation and appInfo appear as subelements of annotation, which may itself appear at the beginning of most schema constructions. To illustrate, the following example shows annotation elements appearing at the beginning of an element declaration and a complex type definition:

Annotations in Element Declaration & Complex Type Definition

<xsd:element name="internationalPrice">
 <xsd:annotation>
  <xsd:documentation xml:lang="en">
      element declared with anonymous type
  </xsd:documentation>
 </xsd:annotation>
 <xsd:complexType>
  <xsd:annotation>
   <xsd:documentation xml:lang="en">
       empty anonymous type with 2 attributes
   </xsd:documentation>
  </xsd:annotation>
  <xsd:complexContent>
   <xsd:restriction base="xsd:anyType">
    <xsd:attribute name="currency" type="xsd:string"/>
    <xsd:attribute name="value"    type="xsd:decimal"/>
   </xsd:restriction>
  </xsd:complexContent>
 </xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>

The annotation element may also appear at the beginning of other schema constructions such as those indicated by the elements schema, simpleType, and attribute.

2.7 Building Content Models

The definitions of complex types in the purchase order schema all declare sequences of elements that must appear in the instance document. The occurrence of individual elements declared in the so-called content models of these types may be optional, as indicated by a 0 value for the attribute minOccurs (e.g. in comment), or be otherwise constrained depending upon the values of minOccurs and maxOccurs. XML Schema also provides constraints that apply to groups of elements appearing in a content model. These constraints mirror those available in XML 1.0 plus some additional constraints. Note that the constraints do not apply to attributes.

XML Schema enables groups of elements to be defined and named, so that the elements can be used to build up the content models of complex types (thus mimicking common usage of parameter entities in XML 1.0). Un-named groups of elements can also be defined, and along with elements in named groups, they can be constrained to appear in the same order (sequence) as they are declared. Alternatively, they can be constrained so that only one of the elements may appear in an instance.

To illustrate, we introduce two groups into the PurchaseOrderType definition from the purchase order schema so that purchase orders may contain either separate shipping and billing addresses, or a single address for those cases in which the shippee and billee are co-located:

Nested Choice and Sequence Groups

<xsd:complexType name="PurchaseOrderType">
 <xsd:sequence>
  <xsd:choice>
   <xsd:group   ref="shipAndBill"/>
   <xsd:element name="singleUSAddress" type="USAddress"/>
  </xsd:choice>
  <xsd:element ref="comment" minOccurs="0"/>
  <xsd:element name="items"  type="Items"/>
 </xsd:sequence>
 <xsd:attribute name="orderDate" type="xsd:date"/>
</xsd:complexType>

<xsd:group name="shipAndBill">
  <xsd:sequence>
    <xsd:element name="shipTo" type="USAddress"/>
    <xsd:element name="billTo" type="USAddress"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
</xsd:group>

The choice group element allows only one of its children to appear in an instance. One child is an inner group element that references the named group shipAndBill consisting of the element sequence shipTo, billTo, and the second child is a singleUSAddress. Hence, in an instance document, the purchaseOrder element must contain either a shipTo element followed by a billTo element or a singleUSAddress element. The choice group is followed by the comment and items element declarations, and both the choice group and the element declarations are children of a sequence group. The effect of these various groups is that the address element(s) must be followed by comment and items elements in that order.

There exists a third option for constraining elements in a group: All the elements in the group may appear once or not at all, and they may appear in any order. The all group (which provides a simplified version of the SGML &-Connector) is limited to the top-level of any content model. Moreover, the group's children must all be individual elements (no groups), and no element in the content model may appear more than once, i.e. the permissible values of minOccurs and maxOccurs are 0 and 1. For example, to allow the child elements of purchaseOrder to appear in any order, we could redefine PurchaseOrderType as:

An 'All' Group

<xsd:complexType name="PurchaseOrderType">
  <xsd:all>
    <xsd:element name="shipTo" type="USAddress"/>
    <xsd:element name="billTo" type="USAddress"/>
    <xsd:element ref="comment" minOccurs="0"/>
    <xsd:element name="items"  type="Items"/>
  </xsd:all>
  <xsd:attribute name="orderDate" type="xsd:date"/>
</xsd:complexType>

By this definition, a comment element may optionally appear within purchaseOrder, and it may appear before or after any shipTo, billTo and items elements, but it can appear only once. Moreover, the stipulations of an all group do not allow us to declare an element such as comment outside the group as a means of enabling it to appear more than once. XML Schema stipulates that an all group must appear as the sole child at the top of a content model. In other words, the following is illegal:

Illegal Example with an 'All' Group

<xsd:complexType name="PurchaseOrderType">
 <xsd:sequence>
  <xsd:all>
    <xsd:element name="shipTo" type="USAddress"/>
    <xsd:element name="billTo" type="USAddress"/>
    <xsd:element name="items"  type="Items"/>
  </xsd:all>
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element ref="comment" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
  </xsd:sequence>
 </xsd:sequence>
 <xsd:attribute name="orderDate" type="xsd:date"/>
</xsd:complexType>

Finally, named and un-named groups that appear in content models (represented by group and choice, sequence, all respectively) may carry minOccurs and maxOccurs attributes. By combining and nesting the various groups provided by XML Schema, and by setting the values of minOccurs and maxOccurs, it is possible to represent any content model expressible with an XML 1.0 DTD. Furthermore, the all group provides additional expressive power.

2.8 Attribute Groups

Suppose we want to provide more information about each item in a purchase order, for example, each item's weight and preferred shipping method. We can accomplish this by adding weightKg and shipBy attribute declarations to the item element's (anonymous) type definition:

Adding Attributes to the Inline Type Definition

<xsd:element name="Item" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
  <xsd:complexType>
   <xsd:sequence>
    <xsd:element   name="productName" type="xsd:string"/>
    <xsd:element   name="quantity">
     <xsd:simpleType>
      <xsd:restriction base="xsd:positiveInteger">
       <xsd:maxExclusive value="100"/>
      </xsd:restriction>
     </xsd:simpleType>
    </xsd:element>
    <xsd:element name="USPrice"  type="xsd:decimal"/>
    <xsd:element ref="comment"   minOccurs="0"/>
    <xsd:element name="shipDate" type="xsd:date" minOccurs="0"/>
   </xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:attribute name="partNum"  type="SKU" use="required"/>
   <!-- add weightKg and shipBy attributes -->
   <xsd:attribute name="weightKg" type="xsd:decimal"/>
   <xsd:attribute name="shipBy">
    <xsd:simpleType>
     <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
      <xsd:enumeration value="air"/>
      <xsd:enumeration value="land"/>
      <xsd:enumeration value="any"/>
     </xsd:restriction>
    </xsd:simpleType>
   </xsd:attribute>
  </xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>

Alternatively, we can create a named attribute group containing all the desired attributes of an item element, and reference this group by name in the item element declaration:

Adding Attributes Using an Attribute Group

<xsd:element name="item" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
 <xsd:complexType>
  <xsd:sequence>
   <xsd:element name="productName" type="xsd:string"/>
   <xsd:element name="quantity">
    <xsd:simpleType>
     <xsd:restriction base="xsd:positiveInteger">
      <xsd:maxExclusive value="100"/>
     </xsd:restriction>
    </xsd:simpleType>
   </xsd:element>
   <xsd:element name="USPrice"  type="xsd:decimal"/>
   <xsd:element ref="comment"   minOccurs="0"/>
   <xsd:element name="shipDate" type="xsd:date" minOccurs="0"/>
  </xsd:sequence>

  <!-- attributeGroup replaces individual declarations -->
  <xsd:attributeGroup ref="ItemDelivery"/>
 </xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>

<xsd:attributeGroup name="ItemDelivery">
  <xsd:attribute name="partNum"  type="SKU" use="required"/>
  <xsd:attribute name="weightKg" type="xsd:decimal"/>
  <xsd:attribute name="shipBy">
    <xsd:simpleType>
     <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
      <xsd:enumeration value="air"/>
      <xsd:enumeration value="land"/>
      <xsd:enumeration value="any"/>
     </xsd:restriction>
    </xsd:simpleType>
  </xsd:attribute>
</xsd:attributeGroup>

Using an attribute group in this way can improve the readability of schemas, and facilitates updating schemas because an attribute group can be defined and edited in one place and referenced in multiple definitions and declarations. These characteristics of attribute groups make them similar to parameter entities in XML 1.0. Note that an attribute group may contain other attribute groups. Note also that both attribute declarations and attribute group references must appear at the end of complex type definitions.

2.9 Nil Values

One of the purchase order items listed in po.xml, the Lawnmower, does not have a shipDate element. Within the context of our scenario, the schema author may have intended such absences to indicate items not yet shipped. But in general, the absence of an element does not have any particular meaning: It may indicate that the information is unknown, or not applicable, or the element may be absent for some other reason. Sometimes it is desirable to represent an unshipped item, unknown information, or inapplicable information explicitly with an element, rather than by an absent element. For example, it may be desirable to represent a "null" value being sent to or from a relational database with an element that is present. Such cases can be represented using XML Schema's nil mechanism which enables an element to appear with or without a non-nil value.

XML Schema's nil mechanism involves an "out of band" nil signal. In other words, there is no actual nil value that appears as element content, instead there is an attribute to indicate that the element content is nil. To illustrate, we modify the shipDate element declaration so that nils can be signalled:

<xsd:element name="shipDate" type="xsd:date" nillable="true"/>

And to explicitly represent that shipDate has a nil value in the instance document, we set the nil attribute (from the XML Schema namespace for instances) to true:

<shipDate xsi:nil="true"></shipDate>

The nil attribute is defined as part of the XML Schema namespace for instances, http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance, and so it must appear in the instance document with a prefix (such as xsi:) associated with that namespace. (As with the xsd: prefix, the xsi: prefix is used by convention only.) Note that the nil mechanism applies only to element values, and not to attribute values. An element with xsi:nil="true" may not have any element content but it may still carry attributes.

3. Advanced Concepts I: Namespaces, Schemas & Qualification

A schema can be viewed as a collection (vocabulary) of type definitions and element declarations whose names belong to a particular namespace called a target namespace. Target namespaces enable us to distinguish between definitions and declarations from different vocabularies. For example, target namespaces would enable us to distinguish between the declaration for element in the XML Schema language vocabulary, and a declaration for element in a hypothetical chemistry language vocabulary. The former is part of the http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema target namespace, and the latter is part of another target namespace.

When we want to check that an instance document conforms to one or more schemas (through a process called schema validation), we need to identify which element and attribute declarations and type definitions in the schemas should be used to check which elements and attributes in the instance document. The target namespace plays an important role in the identification process. We examine the role of the target namespace in the next section.

The schema author also has several options that affect how the identities of elements and attributes are represented in instance documents. More specifically, the author can decide whether or not the appearance of locally declared elements and attributes in an instance must be qualified by a namespace, using either an explicit prefix or implicitly by default. The schema author's choice regarding qualification of local elements and attributes has a number of implications regarding the structures of schemas and instance documents, and we examine some of these implications in the following sections.

3.1 Target Namespaces & Unqualified Locals

In a new version of the purchase order schema, po1.xsd, we explicitly declare a target namespace, and specify that both locally defined elements and locally defined attributes must be unqualified. The target namespace in po1.xsd is http://www.example.com/PO1, as indicated by the value of the targetNamespace attribute.

Qualification of local elements and attributes can be globally specified by a pair of attributes, elementFormDefault and attributeFormDefault, on the schema element, or can be specified separately for each local declaration using the form attribute. All such attributes' values may each be set to unqualified or qualified, to indicate whether or not locally declared elements and attributes must be unqualified.

In po1.xsd we globally specify the qualification of elements and attributes by setting the values of both elementFormDefault and attributeFormDefault to unqualified. Strictly speaking, these settings are unnecessary because the values are the defaults for the two attributes; we make them here to highlight the contrast between this case and other cases we describe later.

Purchase Order Schema with Target Namespace, po1.xsd

<schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
        xmlns:po="http://www.example.com/PO1"
        targetNamespace="http://www.example.com/PO1"
        elementFormDefault="unqualified"
        attributeFormDefault="unqualified">

 <element name="purchaseOrder" type="po:PurchaseOrderType"/>
 <element name="comment"       type="string"/>

 <complexType name="PurchaseOrderType">
  <sequence>
   <element name="shipTo"    type="po:USAddress"/>
   <element name="billTo"    type="po:USAddress"/>
   <element ref="po:comment" minOccurs="0"/>
   <!-- etc. -->
  </sequence>
  <!-- etc. -->
 </complexType>

 <complexType name="USAddress">
  <sequence>
   <element name="name"   type="string"/>
   <element name="street" type="string"/>
   <!-- etc. -->
  </sequence>
 </complexType>

 <!-- etc. -->

</schema>

To see how the target namespace of this schema is populated, we examine in turn each of the type definitions and element declarations. Starting from the end of the schema, we first define a type called USAddress that consists of the elements name, street, etc. One consequence of this type definition is that the USAddress type is included in the schema's target namespace. We next define a type called PurchaseOrderType that consists of the elements shipTo, billTo, comment, etc. PurchaseOrderType is also included in the schema's target namespace. Notice that the type references in the three element declarations are prefixed, i.e. po:USAddress, po:USAddress and po:comment, and the prefix is associated with the namespace http://www.example.com/PO1. This is the same namespace as the schema's target namespace, and so a processor of this schema will know to look within this schema for the definition of the type USAddress and the declaration of the element comment. It is also possible to refer to types in another schema with a different target namespace, hence enabling re-use of definitions and declarations between schemas.

At the beginning of the schema po1.xsd, we declare the elements purchaseOrder and comment. They are included in the schema's target namespace. The purchaseOrder element's type is prefixed, for the same reason that USAddress is prefixed. In contrast, the comment element's type, string, is not prefixed. The po1.xsd schema contains a default namespace declaration, and so unprefixed types such as string and unprefixed elements such as element and complexType are associated with the default namespace http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema. In fact, this is the target namespace of XML Schema itself, and so a processor of po1.xsd will know to look within the schema of XML Schema -- otherwise known as the "schema for schemas" -- for the definition of the type string and the declaration of the element called element.

Let us now examine how the target namespace of the schema affects a conforming instance document:

A Purchase Order with Unqualified Locals, po1.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<apo:purchaseOrder xmlns:apo="http://www.example.com/PO1"
                   orderDate="1999-10-20">
    <shipTo country="US">
        <name>Alice Smith</name>
        <street>123 Maple Street</street>
        <!-- etc. -->
    </shipTo>
    <billTo country="US">
        <name>Robert Smith</name>
        <street>8 Oak Avenue</street>
        <!-- etc. -->
    </billTo>
    <apo:comment>Hurry, my lawn is going wild!</apo:comment>
    <!-- etc. -->
</apo:purchaseOrder>

The instance document declares one namespace, http://www.example.com/PO1, and associates it with the prefix apo:. This prefix is used to qualify two elements in the document, namely purchaseOrder and comment. The namespace is the same as the target namespace of the schema in po1.xsd, and so a processor of the instance document will know to look in that schema for the declarations of purchaseOrder and comment. In fact, target namespaces are so named because of the sense in which there exists a target namespace for the elements purchaseOrder and comment. Target namespaces in the schema therefore control the validation of corresponding namespaces in the instance.

The prefix apo: is applied to the global elements purchaseOrder and comment elements. Furthermore, elementFormDefault and attributeFormDefault require that the prefix is not applied to any of the locally declared elements such as shipTo, billTo, name and street, and it is not applied to any of the attributes (which were all declared locally). The purchaseOrder and comment are global elements because they are declared in the context of the schema as a whole rather than within the context of a particular type. For example, the declaration of purchaseOrder appears as a child of the schema element in po1.xsd, whereas the declaration of shipTo appears as a child of the complexType element that defines PurchaseOrderType.

When local elements and attributes are not required to be qualified, an instance author may require more or less knowledge about the details of the schema to create schema valid instance documents. More specifically, if the author can be sure that only the root element (such as purchaseOrder) is global, then it is a simple matter to qualify only the root element. Alternatively, the author may know that all the elements are declared globally, and so all the elements in the instance document can be prefixed, perhaps taking advantage of a default namespace declaration. (We examine this approach in Section 3.3.) On the other hand, if there is no uniform pattern of global and local declarations, the author will need detailed knowledge of the schema to correctly prefix global elements and attributes.

3.2 Qualified Locals

Elements and attributes can be independently required to be qualified, although we start by describing the qualification of local elements. To specify that all locally declared elements in a schema must be qualified, we set the value of elementFormDefault to qualified:

Modifications to po1.xsd for Qualified Locals

<schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
        xmlns:po="http://www.example.com/PO1"
        targetNamespace="http://www.example.com/PO1"
        elementFormDefault="qualified"
        attributeFormDefault="unqualified">

 <element name="purchaseOrder" type="po:PurchaseOrderType"/>
 <element name="comment"       type="string"/>

 <complexType name="PurchaseOrderType">
  <!-- etc. -->
 </complexType>

 <!-- etc. -->

</schema>

And in this conforming instance document, we qualify all the elements explicitly:

A Purchase Order with Explicitly Qualified Locals

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<apo:purchaseOrder xmlns:apo="http://www.example.com/PO1"
                   orderDate="1999-10-20">
    <apo:shipTo country="US">
        <apo:name>Alice Smith</apo:name>
        <apo:street>123 Maple Street</apo:street>
        <!-- etc. -->
    </apo:shipTo>
    <apo:billTo country="US">
        <apo:name>Robert Smith</apo:name>
        <apo:street>8 Oak Avenue</apo:street>
        <!-- etc. -->
    </apo:billTo>
    <apo:comment>Hurry, my lawn is going wild!</apo:comment>
    <!-- etc. -->
</apo:purchaseOrder>

Alternatively, we can replace the explicit qualification of every element with implicit qualification provided by a default namespace, as shown here in po2.xml:

A Purchase Order with Default Qualified Locals, po2.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<purchaseOrder xmlns="http://www.example.com/PO1"
               orderDate="1999-10-20">
    <shipTo country="US">
        <name>Alice Smith</name>
        <street>123 Maple Street</street>
        <!-- etc. -->
    </shipTo>
    <billTo country="US">
        <name>Robert Smith</name>
        <street>8 Oak Avenue</street>
        <!-- etc. -->
    </billTo>
    <comment>Hurry, my lawn is going wild!</comment>
    <!-- etc. -->
</purchaseOrder>

In po2.xml, all the elements in the instance belong to the same namespace, and the namespace statement declares a default namespace that applies to all the elements in the instance. Hence, it is unnecessary to explicitly prefix any of the elements. As another illustration of using qualified elements, the schemas in Section 5 all require qualified elements.

Qualification of attributes is very similar to the qualification of elements. Attributes that must be qualified, either because they are declared globally or because the attributeFormDefault attribute is set to qualified, appear prefixed in instance documents. One example of a qualified attribute is the xsi:nil attribute that was introduced in Section 2.9. In fact, attributes that are required t