FREE Web Template Download
HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT SQL PHP BOOTSTRAP JQUERY ANGULARJS TUTORIALS REFERENCES EXAMPLES Blog
 

XSD Indicators


We can control HOW elements are to be used in documents with indicators.


Indicators

There are seven indicators:

Order indicators:

  • All
  • Choice
  • Sequence

Occurrence indicators:

  • maxOccurs
  • minOccurs

Group indicators:

  • Group name
  • attributeGroup name

Order Indicators

Order indicators are used to define the order of the elements.

All Indicator

The <all> indicator specifies that the child elements can appear in any order, and that each child element must occur only once:

<xs:element name="person">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:all>
      <xs:element name="firstname" type="xs:string"/>
      <xs:element name="lastname" type="xs:string"/>
    </xs:all>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

Note: When using the <all> indicator you can set the <minOccurs> indicator to 0 or 1 and the <maxOccurs> indicator can only be set to 1 (the <minOccurs> and <maxOccurs> are described later).

Choice Indicator

The <choice> indicator specifies that either one child element or another can occur:

<xs:element name="person">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:choice>
      <xs:element name="employee" type="employee"/>
      <xs:element name="member" type="member"/>
    </xs:choice>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

Sequence Indicator

The <sequence> indicator specifies that the child elements must appear in a specific order:

<xs:element name="person">
   <xs:complexType>
    <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element name="firstname" type="xs:string"/>
      <xs:element name="lastname" type="xs:string"/>
    </xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

Occurrence Indicators

Occurrence indicators are used to define how often an element can occur.

Note: For all "Order" and "Group" indicators (any, all, choice, sequence, group name, and group reference) the default value for maxOccurs and minOccurs is 1.

maxOccurs Indicator

The <maxOccurs> indicator specifies the maximum number of times an element can occur:

<xs:element name="person">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element name="full_name" type="xs:string"/>
      <xs:element name="child_name" type="xs:string" maxOccurs="10"/>
    </xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

The example above indicates that the "child_name" element can occur a minimum of one time (the default value for minOccurs is 1) and a maximum of ten times in the "person" element.

minOccurs Indicator

The <minOccurs> indicator specifies the minimum number of times an element can occur:

<xs:element name="person">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element name="full_name" type="xs:string"/>
      <xs:element name="child_name" type="xs:string"
      maxOccurs="10" minOccurs="0"/>
    </xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

The example above indicates that the "child_name" element can occur a minimum of zero times and a maximum of ten times in the "person" element.

Tip: To allow an element to appear an unlimited number of times, use the maxOccurs="unbounded" statement:

A working example:

An XML file called "Myfamily.xml":

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<persons xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="family.xsd">

<person>
  <full_name>Hege Refsnes</full_name>
  <child_name>Cecilie</child_name>
</person>

<person>
  <full_name>Tove Refsnes</full_name>
  <child_name>Hege</child_name>
  <child_name>Stale</child_name>
  <child_name>Jim</child_name>
  <child_name>Borge</child_name>
</person>

<person>
  <full_name>Stale Refsnes</full_name>
</person>

</persons>

The XML file above contains a root element named "persons". Inside this root element we have defined three "person" elements. Each "person" element must contain a "full_name" element and it can contain up to five "child_name" elements.

Here is the schema file "family.xsd":

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
elementFormDefault="qualified">

<xs:element name="persons">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element name="person" maxOccurs="unbounded">
        <xs:complexType>
          <xs:sequence>
            <xs:element name="full_name" type="xs:string"/>
            <xs:element name="child_name" type="xs:string"
            minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="5"/>
          </xs:sequence>
        </xs:complexType>
      </xs:element>
    </xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

</xs:schema>

Group Indicators

Group indicators are used to define related sets of elements.

Element Groups

Element groups are defined with the group declaration, like this:

<xs:group name="groupname">
...
</xs:group>

You must define an all, choice, or sequence element inside the group declaration. The following example defines a group named "persongroup", that defines a group of elements that must occur in an exact sequence:

<xs:group name="persongroup">
  <xs:sequence>
    <xs:element name="firstname" type="xs:string"/>
    <xs:element name="lastname" type="xs:string"/>
    <xs:element name="birthday" type="xs:date"/>
  </xs:sequence>
</xs:group>

After you have defined a group, you can reference it in another definition, like this:

<xs:group name="persongroup">
  <xs:sequence>
    <xs:element name="firstname" type="xs:string"/>
    <xs:element name="lastname" type="xs:string"/>
    <xs:element name="birthday" type="xs:date"/>
  </xs:sequence>
</xs:group>

<xs:element name="person" type="personinfo"/>

<xs:complexType name="personinfo">
  <xs:sequence>
    <xs:group ref="persongroup"/>
    <xs:element name="country" type="xs:string"/>
  </xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>

Attribute Groups

Attribute groups are defined with the attributeGroup declaration, like this:

<xs:attributeGroup name="groupname">
...
</xs:attributeGroup>

The following example defines an attribute group named "personattrgroup":

<xs:attributeGroup name="personattrgroup">
  <xs:attribute name="firstname" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:attribute name="lastname" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:attribute name="birthday" type="xs:date"/>
</xs:attributeGroup>

After you have defined an attribute group, you can reference it in another definition, like this:

<xs:attributeGroup name="personattrgroup">
  <xs:attribute name="firstname" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:attribute name="lastname" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:attribute name="birthday" type="xs:date"/>
</xs:attributeGroup>

<xs:element name="person">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:attributeGroup ref="personattrgroup"/>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>