Circular schema?

Just when I think I'm catching on, I see something that turns my little
schema world upside down :)

I'm starting to run across WSDL schemas generated by .NET (sometimes I just
want to shoot them:) that appear to have a circular structure... basically,
the schema defines all the applicable types just fine... but it also defines
a type that's referenced by the message part that looks like this:

      <s:element name="GetResponse">
        <s:complexType>
          <s:sequence>
            <s:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="GetResult">
              <s:complexType>
                <s:sequence>
                  <s:element ref="s:schema"/>
                  <s:any/>
                </s:sequence>
              </s:complexType>
            </s:element>
          </s:sequence>
        </s:complexType>
      </s:element>

First, it has always been my understanding that an element ref has to
reference a global element.  Is the entire schema considered a global
element?

Second, this might make more sense to me if an element in one schema
referenced a different schema.  But in this case, the element references the
schema of which it is a member.  Is this legal?
    

Brenda Bell
Sr. Software Architect
Juice Software, Inc.
Phone: 603.428.3994
Cell:  603.494.8206
Fax:   603.428.8713
Email: bbell@juicesoftware.com
MSN:   bbell@theotherbell.com