XML vocabulary design and specification using XML Schema 1.0

This tutorial will introduce participants to the basics of defining markup vocabularies and introduce XML Schema 1.0 as a language for defining document grammars. The emphasis will be on the analysis and design process, not on syntax or the mechanics of the specific schema language. Practical exercises will involve paper and pen, not software.

Topics covered will include:

Basic principles of data analysis and modeling

Vocabulary design as a social as well as a technical problem

The concept of document grammars

The uses of document grammars

• as definitions of sets of documents
• as documentation for a particular view of information
• as an agreement between data provider and data receiver
• as a tool for producing documents with type annotations
• as a tool for annotating documents with other information
• as input to automated tools for data binding and generation of class files
• as documentation for what a particular version of a particular processor ‘understands’
• as documentation for what a particular version of a particular processor must accept, even if it does not fully understand it

Design issues

• reuse and context-dependency
• modular vocabulary design
• exposing and hiding declarations and names
• over-generation and under-generation

Important constructs of XML Schema 1.0

• element and attribute declarations
• simple and complex types
• type derivation
• anonymous vs. named types
• top-level vs. local elements and attributes
• wildcards and their uses

XML Schema 1.0 and XML Schema 1.1

• decimal numbers with fixed and variable precision
• XML 1.0 and 1.1 support
• wildcard usage and versioning support
• co-occurrence constraints (assertions)