XML Schema Question from Joseph M. Reagle Jr. on 2001-01-09 (xmlschema-dev@w3.org from January 2001)

From: Joseph M. Reagle Jr. <reagle@w3.org>
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 18:15:56 -0500
To: henry@w3.org, "Michael Sperberg-McQueen" <cmsmcq@w3.org>
Cc: xmlschema-dev@w3.org, Brian LaMacchia <bal@microsoft.com>, "Donald Eastlake" <dee3@torque.pothole.com>, <lde008@dma.isg.mot.com>
Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010109173156.02a8a608@rpcp.mit.edu>

Is there a more elegant schema representation for the semantic of, "you can have a sequence of the following, and while I don't care which you have (they are all optional) you must have at least one of them."

For instance, the following works (though is there a more elegant version for the schema?):

<!ELEMENT PGPData ((PGPKeyID, PGPKeyPacket?) | (PGPKeyPacket) %PGPData.ANY;) >

-->

   <complexType name="PGPDataType"> 
     <choice>
       <sequence>
         <element name="PGPKeyID" type="string" minOccurs="1"/> 
         <element name="PGPKeyPacket" type="ds:CryptoBinary" minOccurs="0"/> 
         <any namespace="##other" processContents="lax" minOccurs="0" 
          maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
       </sequence>
       <sequence>
         <element name="PGPKeyPacket" type="ds:CryptoBinary"/> 
         <any namespace="##other" processContents="lax" minOccurs="0" 
          maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
       </sequence>
     </choice>
   </complexType> 

but it can get ugly for larger structures, or I keep it simple and end up permitting more than one instance of each child (wrong)

   <!ELEMENT X509Data ((X509IssuerSerial | X509SKI | X509SubjectName |
                        X509Certificate)+ | X509CRL %X509.ANY;)>

or permitting empty content (wrong)

   <!ELEMENT X509Data ((X509IssuerSerial?, X509SKI?, X509SubjectName?, 
                        X509Certificate?) | X509CRL %X509.ANY;)>

__ 
Joseph Reagle Jr.   
W3C Policy Analyst                mailto:reagle@w3.org
IETF/W3C XML-Signature Co-Chair   http://www.w3.org/People/Reagle/

Received on Tuesday, 9 January 2001 19:36:20 UTC