1.1 Structure suggestion: union of complex content

A pie-in-the-sky sort of suggestion for XML Schema 1.1...

One limitation of XML Schema is that the definition of cross dependencies between attributes and elements is not possible (correct me if I am wrong).  For instance, the element content in the following fragments cannot be validated differently based on the value of the type attribute:

  <thingy type="integer">1</thingy>
  <thingy type="boolean">true</thingy>
  <thingy type="string">string</thingy>

My suggestion is to allow for unions in complex type definitions.  My current thought is that they would operate in a similar fashion to simple type unions, at the same level as <restriction> or <extension>:

  <complexType name="tns:thingyType">
    <complexContent>
      <union base="tns:baseThingyType" memberTypes="#restriction"/>
    </complexContent>
  </complexType>

  <complexType name="thingyType">
    <simpleContent>
      <extension base="string">
        <attribute name="type" type="string" use="required"/>
      </extension>
    </simpleContent>
  </complexType>

Based on this definition, as long as instances are valid restrictions of tns:thingyType, the document would be valid.  The memberTypes attribute would be the union of "#any", "#restriction", "#extension" and the QName type (one or two hashes doesn't matter - I can't discern which is more appropriate here, the pattern is hard to pick).

A valid restriction of this type would consist of valid restrictions of any of the allowed types, or a smaller set of allowed types.

The idea of having a base type is that the construct could be substituted with the base type without any adverse effect, consistent with the restriction function.

Basically, this would enable cross-correlation of element and attribute content, also enabling restriction of attribute sets.  It's not as elegant as RelaxNG, but I think that it fits with the existing framework, with little actual work required.

Cheers,
Martin 

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[mf2]

Received on Wednesday, 5 October 2005 05:33:03 UTC