Comments on schema standards

Folks,

I've been trying to use schemas to manipulate XML within
a Java applet. The schema processors that I know about
are too large to incorporate into an applet, so I've
implemented code to deal with the subset of the schema
language that I will actually need. By making
various sacrifices, I've been able to create a useful (to me)
schema tool that fits in a 40K jar file. This is small
enough so that it can be used in situations where a
multi-megabyte implementation is too big.

It seems to me that simple types are very complex and
can be safely ignored for my purposes. That is the primary
sacrifice I made to create a tiny schema subset.

It would be nice if there was some definition of a core to
the schema standard that a lightweight implementation could
support, and least for the next few years until a full featured
implementation can be assumed in a standard environment.
Basic XML distinguishes validating and non-validating parsers,
so there is a useful terminology to discuss and guide
development of subset engines.

I would like to see something analogous for schemas.

-Christopher Eliot
Department of Computer Science
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Received on Monday, 29 September 2003 09:03:52 UTC