Re: Versioning of XML Schema and namespaces

Dan Vint wrote:
> I agree with the idea that namespaces could provide this functionality, 
> except that most folks recommend not versioning the namespace. I believe 
> you or someone in this thread suggested using the version attribute for 
> this function. Well that might work if the parsers actually did 
> something with the version attribute. The only mechanism that I can be 
> sure will be caught by the parser is to use the namespace with a version 
> to indicate that the document conforms to a different version of the 
> standard than someone else might be using.

If you're depending on *parsers* to bind instances to schemas then you 
should be using schemaLocation= because clearly you have control over 
that part of the system (the parsers you're using). Put the version 
information in the URI of the XSD instance. I don't see that you can do 
anything other that that.

Putting a version in the namespace is definitely not the right thing to do.

Both Mike Kay and I have have recommended using a separate version 
attribute to indicate the schema version to use. This presumes that you 
have the ability to implement the mechanism that binds documents to 
schemas, which you may not have.



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W. Eliot Kimber
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Received on Tuesday, 10 May 2005 15:21:12 UTC