Can XSD do "by reference"

I would like to define a sort of row-column schema. Although the XML is
easy to write manually, I'm having trouble finding an elegant schema
design. The requirements are:

1. A sequence (1 or more occurrences) of column definitions, which is
straightforward enough i.e. a sequence of elements each with a sequence
of identical children. This would permit one to create column types by
adding an entry to this list of properties that a column must have. A
simplistic example: columns must have properties Name and Type. One
instance might have Name="Purchase Type" and Type="string". Another
instance might have Name="Purchase Date" and Type="Date".

2. Another sequence that provides row data using references to each of
the above types rather than a copy (Name(1)="Capital Equipment" AND
Name(2)="1/1/2007");

I can be quite flexible as to the particulars as long as it will pass
through the Visual Studio code generator(XSD.exe) and provide the above
properties. However, I haven't found a way to do the reference bit in
#2. Visual Studio's DataSet designer provides an implementation of this
using data relations but it's rather complex. Is a simpler solution
feasible?

Rich

Received on Wednesday, 8 August 2007 04:39:52 UTC