The authoritative XML Schema reference and tutorial! Leverage the full power of XML Schema! In-depth coverage of the approved W3C Recommendation Schema design–practical and thorough Transition help for experienced DTD developers Authoritative! By Priscilla Walmsley–a member of the W3C XML Schema Working Group To leverage the full power of XML, companies need shared vocabularies to base their documents and scripts upon. XML Schema makes it possible to create those shared vocabularies-and Definitive XML Schema is the authoritative guide to the standard! Written by Priscilla Walmsley, a member of the W3C working group that created XML Schema, this book explains the W3C Recommendation with unprecedented insight and clarity–and introduces practical techniques for writing schemas to support any B2B, Web service, or content processing application. Coverage includes: How XML Schema provides a rigorous, complete standard for modeling XML document structure, content, and datatypes Working with schemas: Schema composition, instance validation, documentation, namespaces, and more XML Schema building blocks: elements, attributes, and types Advanced techniques: type derivation, model groups, substitution groups, identity constraints, redefinition, and much more An in-depth primer on effective schema design, including naming, document structure, and extensibility considerations Transition guidance for experienced DTD developers Definitive XML Schema brings together expert guidance for schema design, superior approaches to schema development, and the most systematic XML Schema reference on the market. Whether you're a developer, architect, or content specialist, it's the only XML Schema resource you need! "XML Schema is an incredibly powerful-and complex-document schema language, with such new capabilities as strong typing, modularity, inheritance, and identity constraints. This book guides you through the complexity so you can confidently use that power for your own projects."–Charles F. Goldfarb

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements. 1. Schemas: An introduction. What is an XML schema? The purpose of schemas. Schema design. Schema languages. 2. A quick tour of XML Schema. An example schema. The components of XML Schema. Elements and attributes. Data types. Simple types. Complex types. Namespaces and XML Schema. Schema composition. Instances and schemas. Annotations. Advanced features. 3. Namespaces. Namespaces in XML. The relationship between namespaces and schemas. Using namespaces in XSDL. 4. Schema composition. Modularizing schema documents. Defining schema documents. Schema assembly. include, redefine, and import. 5. Instances and schemas. Using the instance attributes. Schema processing. Relating instances to schemas. Using XSDL hints in the instance. Dereferencing namespaces. The root element. Using DTDs and schemas together. Using specific schema processors. 6. Schema documentation and extension. The mechanics. User documentation. Application information. Notations. 7. Element declarations. Global and local element declarations. Declaring the data types of elements. Default and fixed values. Nils and nillability. Qualified vs unqualified forms. 8. Attribute declarations. Global and local attribute declarations. Assigning types to attributes. Default and fixed values. Qualified vs unqualified forms. 9. Simple types. Simple type varieties. Simple type definitions. Simple type restrictions. Facets. Preventing simple type derivation. 10. Regular expressions. The structure of a regular expression. Atoms. Quantifiers. 11. Union and list types. Varieties and derivation types. Union types. List types. 12. Built-in simple types. Built-in types. String-based types. Numeric types. Date and time types. Legacy types. Other types. Type equality. 13. Complex types. What are complex types? Defining complex types. Content types. Using element types. Using model groups. Using attributes. 14. Deriving complex types. Why derive types? Restriction and extension. Simple content and complex content. Complex type extensions. Complex type restrictions. Type substitution. Controlling type derivation and substitution. 15. Reusable groups. Why reusable groups? Named model groups. Attribute groups. Reusable groups vs complex type derivations. 16. Substitution groups. Why substitution groups? The substitution group hierarchy. Declaring a substitution group. Type constraints for substitution groups. Alternatives to substitution groups. Controlling substitution groups. 17. Identity constraints. Identity constraint categories. Design hint: Should I use ID/IDREF or key/keyref? Structure of an identity constraint. Uniqueness constraints. Key constraints. Key references. Selectors and fields. The XML Schema XPath subset. Identity constraints and namespaces. 18. Redefining schema components. Redefinition basics. The mechanics of redefinition. Redefining simple types. Redefining complex types. Redefining named model groups. Redefining attribute groups. 19. Topics for DTD users. Element declarations. Attribute declarations. Notations. Parameter entities for reuse. Parameter entities for extensibility. External parameter entities. General entities. Comments. Using DTDs and schemas together. 20. Naming considerations. Naming guidelines. Qualified vs unqualified names. Structuring namespaces. Multiple languages. 21. Extensibility and reuse. Reuse. Extending schemas. Versioning of schemas. Designing applications to support change. Appendix A: Table of XSDL keywords. XSDL element types. XSDL attributes. Appendix B: Built-in simple types. Built-in simple types. Index.