Re: suitable data type to store patterns..

----- Original Message From: "dave" ----- 
> Am using W3C XML Schema.
> I need to store some pattern values such as
> "[/<*ab^&[[1"  (excluding quotes) in XML. What would
> be the data type for an element which would store such
> values as is?

There's no XSD schema type that allows you to store things like < and & in 
an XML instance in their raw form.  For example, the following would be an 
illegal document:

    <MyElement><&</MyElement>

All you can do is define your type as xs:string (or some restriction 
thereof) and the XML tool or library that you use to interface to your XML 
instance should hopefully do the conversion for you from something like: <& 
to &lt;&amp; and vice versa.

Alternatively your tool (or you if you're rolling your own) may choose to 
store the data in what's called a CDATA Section [1].  This wraps text 
between the tokens <![CDATA[ and ]]>, for example:

        <![CDATA[&]]>

Obviously if your data includes the sequence ]]>, you have to be careful to 
do something like:

        <![CDATA[&]]>]]&gt;<![CDATA[&]]>

for &]]>& (see [2]).

These escaping methods are issues of XML instance well-formedness however, 
which is something a schema can not have no direct impact on.

HTH,

Pete Cordell
Codalogic
Visit http://www.codalogic.com/lmx/ for XML C++ data binding


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816/#sec-cdata-sect
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816/#syntax