Nillable seems inconsistent

I have two nillable Elements.  One validates when the tag is empty, the
other does not.  The tag that does not valid is *effectively* the same as
the validating one, i.e. a string, albeit with some associated restriction.

My question is: why don't BOTH tags fail validation when they are empty ?

Any distinction between the tags must be arbitrarily obtuse (they are in
effect simple strings)...or have I missed something ?

Please help clarify my understanding.

Many thanks

Mark Buchner


Example:

XSD
<xsd:element name="Person" type="PersonType"/>
  <xsd:complexType name="PersonType">
   <xsd:sequence>
    <xsd:element name="Name" type="xsd:string" nillable="true"/>
    <xsd:element name="DOB" type="MyDate" nillable="true"/>
   </xsd:sequence>
  </xsd:complexType>
  <xsd:simpleType name="MyDate">
   <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
    <xsd:length value="10"/>
    <xsd:pattern value="[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}"/>
   </xsd:restriction>
  </xsd:simpleType>

XML (this validates)
<Person xmlns:xsi="..." xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="myfile.xsd">
  <Name/>
  <DOB>2001-01-01</DOB>
</Person>

XML (this DOES NOT validate)
<Person xmlns:xsi="..." xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="myfile.xsd">
  <Name/>
  <DOB/>
</Person>




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Received on Wednesday, 10 July 2002 19:12:24 UTC