Using W3C XML Schema
by Eric van der Vlist | Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Table of Contents

•Introducing Our First Schema •Slicing the Schema •Defining Named Types •Groups, Compositors and Derivation •Content Types •Constraints •Building Usable and Reusable Schemas •Namespaces •W3C XML Schema and Instance Documents •W3C XML Schema Datatypes Reference •W3C XML Schema Structures Reference

W3C XML Schema and Instance Documents

We've now covered most of the features of W3C XML Schema, but we still need to have a glance on some extensions that you can use within your instance documents. In order to differentiate these other features, a separate namespace, http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance, usually associated with the prefix xsi.

The xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation and xsi:schemaLocation attributes allow you to tie a document to its W3C XML Schema. This link is not mandatory, and other indications can be given at validation time, but it does help W3C XML Schema-aware tools to locate a schema.

Dependent on using namespaces, the link will be either

<book isbn="0836217462"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="file:library.xsd">

Or, as below (noting the syntax with a URI for the namespace and the URI of the schema, separated by whitespace in the same attribute):

<book isbn="0836217462" 
	xmlns="http://example.org/ns/books/"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation= 
	    "http://example.org/ns/books/ file:library.xsd">

The other use of xsi attributes is to provide information about how an element corresponds to a schema.These attributes are xsi:type, which lets you define the simple or complex type of an element and xsi:nil, which lets you specify a nil (null) value for an element (that has to be defined as nillable in the schema using a nillable=true attribute). You don't need to declare these attributes in your W3C XML Schema to be able to use them in an instance document.

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