Re: overriding sub-elements with XSD

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 10:28 PM, trubliphone
<[email protected]> wrote:
> I have two complexTypes, one of which extends the other, and both
> which have a sub-element with the same name.  However, the details of that
> element (type, min/maxOccurs,, etc.) can vary.  In this example below,
> "parent" must have one "subElement" and "child" must have two:

you don't have to necessarily model the specified XML document
structure as schema type-subtype relationship. Since derivation both
by schema extension and restriction makes achieving the objectives
specified in your use-case (the XML element hierarchy you want)
difficult (with at-least XSD 1.0). Kevin has explained quite a bit of
that.


> I am basically hoping for an "oo-style" solution, where the child's sub-element _overrides_ the parent's
> sub-element of the same name.  Is that possible in XSD?

I would rather like using following approach with XSD 1.1 assertions:

<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

      <xs:element name="root">
          <xs:complexType>
              <xs:sequence>
                   <xs:element name="parent">
                       <xs:complexType>
                           <xs:group ref="TEST_GROUP" />
                           <xs:assert test="count(subElement) = 1" />
                       </xs:complexType>
                   </xs:element>
                   <xs:element name="child">
                        <xs:complexType>
                            <xs:group ref="TEST_GROUP" />
                            <xs:assert test="count(subElement) = 2" />
                        </xs:complexType>
                   </xs:element>
               </xs:sequence>
           </xs:complexType>
      </xs:element>

      <xs:group name="TEST_GROUP">
          <xs:sequence>
               <xs:element name="subElement" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="2" />
          </xs:sequence>
      </xs:group>

</xs:schema>

Here we create a XSD group component (with the objective of reusing
the element particle definitions from schema group in more than one
schema types -- which I think is a useful design substitute of schema
type-subtype relation you're looking after). In the above schema
example, please note the cardinality definition here of "subElement"
in xs:group which is 0-2 (both inclusive) -- this allows us to control
cardinality of element particles at reuse points (here complex type
definitions of "child" & "parent" elements), via Schema 1.1
assertions.

The above schema would say successfully validate following XML
instance document:

<root>
   <parent>
      <subElement/>
   </parent>
   <child>
      <subElement/>
      <subElement/>
   </child>
</root>



-- 
Regards,
Mukul Gandhi