Preliminary Version of Schema Components Infoset Model in Java by IBM is available on Partnerworld for Developers

There has been a lot of discussion (on various mailing lists) about the
benefits of a standard API which would allow software that creates,
examines or modify XML Schemas, written in Java, to do so in a way that
represents the semantic XML schema components described in the W3C XML
Schema specifications.

In February, we shared with the W3C Schema and DOM working groups some
thoughts about what such an API should try to do.  You can see those
'requirements' described here: http://www.research.ibm.com/XML/schema/WD-
XML-Schema-Infoset-API-Req.htm .

I have been lucky to work with Ed Merks, part of the IBM Websphere Studio
Application Developer development group, to define such an API and to
produce a reference implementation.  Although we have not yet completed
every last function we have in mind to implement, nor have we done any
performance tuning, this API has been used successfully in building several
real XML and Web Services tools.  We have tried to make a reasonable and
straightforward Javadoc, and have been grateful to have Shane Curcuru, who
has worked on the Apache Xalan team, give us some guidance on how to do
this.  We are aiming for an API which is very complete: not simply read-
only, and able to handle any XML Schema, no matter how complex.  We tried
to use the terminology from the W3C's XML Schema specifications in naming
our classes/interfaces, methods, a constants.

We have now made this work, including source code, UML, example usage code
and documentation, available publically for the wider community to examine
and use.  Donating a future version of this to some open source effort is
possible, although I can't make a commitment on behalf of IBM at this time.

We encourage you to download our work.  You can do so through IBM's
Partnerworld for Developers web pages.

https://www.developer.ibm.com/member/register/how2join.html - shows how you
can get yourself an ID and password if you've never
 joined Partnerworld for Developers

https://www.developer.ibm.com/websphere/member/workbench_beta_download.html
- where you can find the XSD Feature, the name for the Schema Infoset Model
(aka com.ibm.etools.xsd)

Note: I have posted this notice also to several other xml and web services
development lists, but have asked that any questions and comments be posted
to this list at least until the end of June.

Bob Schloss
XML/XSL Transformational Technologies
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center