RE: Schema Newbie Boxed in a corner . . .

One solution to that kind of problem is to define an alternative format that
can be described using XML Schema, and do your validation by transforming to
the alternative format and validating that. Of course the problem is that
any validation error messages are one step removed from the original.
 
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/


  _____  

From: xmlschema-dev-request@w3.org [mailto:xmlschema-dev-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Frank Merrow
Sent: 28 April 2008 01:50
To: Michael Kay; 'Frank Merrow'; xmlschema-dev@w3.org
Subject: RE: Schema Newbie Boxed in a corner . . .


At 12:20 AM 4/26/2008, Michael Kay wrote:


Generally, that's not a good way of designing your XML, which explains why
there is no way of describing your design in XML Schema. It's best to use
element and attribute names to denote types, and element or attribute values
to contain instance data.


I was afraid that would be the answer . . .

Unfortunately, the Application is up and running on hundreds of customer
sites and dependent on the current setup.

Rolling to something new will complicate things because we have to maintain
backwards compatibility for systems with old data, but it think having a
schema to verify additions is important enough we probably will bite the
bullet and make the change.

Thanks for confirming my fears.  ;-) 

Frank