XML validation

[Philip Nye]

> From: Bryan Cooper <bryan.cooper at veritas.com>
> The
>XML Schema:Structures draft seems too conservative in this area: if it
>doesnt give substantial advantages over markup declarations I dont see
>the point:  a little nicer improvement to content models for database
>support and an enormous increase in size.


I am quite new to XML and initially got quite excited about the XML Schema
proposal. However, reading this list there seem to be two views of what
schemas are for and I am not sure whether a schema is what I need.

On the one hand are people who do not like the totally different syntax
used in a DTD and would like to replace it with a schema which uses the
same syntax as the rest of an XML document but otherwise does the same
as a DTD.

On the other hand there are those who want to do things a DTD cannot, such
as object inheritance (<archetype> and <refines>) or reintroduce the
potentially
useful but apparently tricky "&" connector.

There is then the issue of backward compatibility between a schema and
XML 1.0. Translating a schema based document to a DTD based one can be:
possible, possible with loss of information, or just impossible.
Some want one, while some want another.

Is this a fair summary of the situation or have I got quite the wrong
end of the stick?

Philip Nye



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