Relax Ng

by van der Vlist, Eric

• ISBN13: 9780596004217
• ISBN10: 0596004214
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-01
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

With this new title, developers will learn a no-nonsense method for creating XML schemas. RELAX NG (Regular Language Description for XML Core-New Generation) is a grammar-based schema language that's both easy to learn for schema creators and easy to implement for software developers. This book offers a clear-cut explanation of RELAX NG that enables intermediate and advanced XML developers to focus on XML document structures and contents rather than battle the intricacies of yet another convoluted standard.

Author Biography

Eric van der Vlist is the resident expert on XML schema languages on XML.com. He is also a member of the ISO DSDL committee, where standardization work on RELAX NG and related specifications is in progress. Eric is also the author of O'Reilly's XML Schema.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
James Clark
Foreword	xi
Murata Makoto
Preface	xiii
Part I. Tutorial
What RELAX NG Offers	3	(5)
Diversity	3	(1)
Keeping Documents Independent of Applications	3	(1)
Validation Has Many Aspects	4	(1)
The Best Way to Validate XML Document Structures	4	(1)
RELAX NG's Diverse Applications	5	(1)
RELAX NG as a Pivot Format	6	(1)
Why Use Other Schema Languages?	7	(1)
Simple Foundations Are Beautiful	8	(6)
Documents and Infosets	8	(1)
Different Types of Schema Languages	9	(1)
A Simple Example	10	(2)
A Strong Mathematical Background	12	(1)
Patterns, and Only Patterns	13	(1)
First Schema	14	(10)
Getting Started	14	(1)
First Patterns	15	(5)
Complete Schema	20	(4)
Introducing the Compact Syntax	24	(7)
First Compact Patterns	25	(3)
Full Schema	28	(1)
XML or Compact?	29	(2)
Flattening the First Schema	31	(14)
Defining Named Patterns	33	(1)
Referencing Named Patterns	34	(1)
The grammar and start Elements	35	(1)
Assembling the Parts	36	(6)
Problems That Never Arise	42	(1)
Recursive Models	43	(1)
Escaping Names Pattern Identifiers in the Compact Syntax	44	(1)
More Complex Patterns	45	(17)
The group Pattern	45	(1)
The interleave Pattern	46	(2)
The choice Pattern	48	(1)
Pattern Compositions	49	(1)
Order Variation as a Source of Information	50	(1)
Text and Empty Patterns, Whitespace, and Mixed Content	51	(3)
Why Is It Called interleave?	54	(3)
Mixed Content Models with Order	57	(2)
A Restriction Related to interleave	59	(2)
A Missing Pattern: Unordered Group	61	(1)
Constraining Text Values	62	(18)
Fixed Values	62	(1)
Co-Occurrence Constraints	62	(8)
Enumerations	70	(1)
Whitespace and RELAX NG Native Datatypes	70	(2)
Using String Datatypes in Attribute Values	72	(1)
When to Use String Datatypes	73	(1)
Using Different Types in Each Value	74	(1)
Exclusions	74	(2)
Lists	76	(2)
Data Versus Text	78	(2)
Datatype Libraries	80	(24)
W3C XML Schema Type Library	80	(18)
DTD Compatibility Datatypes	98	(3)
Which Library Should Be Used?	101	(3)
Using Regular Expressions to Specify Simple Datatypes	104	(16)
A Swiss Army Knife	104	(1)
The Simplest Possible Pattern Facets	105	(1)
Quantifying	106	(1)
More Atoms	107	(8)
Common Patterns	115	(5)
Creating Building Blocks	120	(40)
Using External References	120	(14)
Merging Grammars	134	(15)
A Real-World Example: XHTML 2.0	149	(4)
Other Options	153	(7)
Namespaces	160	(28)
A Ten-Minute Guide to XML Namespaces	160	(5)
The Two Challenges of Namespaces	165	(1)
Declaring Namespaces in Schemas	166	(5)
Accepting Foreign Namespaces	171	(8)
Namespaces, Building Blocks, and Chameleon Design	179	(9)
Writing Extensible Schemas	188	(23)
Extensible Schemas	188	(18)
The Case for Open Schemas	206	(2)
Extensible and Open?	208	(3)
Annotating Schemas	211	(39)
Common Principles for Annotating RELAX NG Schemas	211	(15)
Documentation	226	(12)
Annotation for Applications	238	(12)
Generating RELAX NG Schemas	250	(25)
Examplotron: Instance Documents as Schemas	251	(7)
Literate Programming	258	(6)
UML	264	(6)
Spreadsheets	270	(5)
Simplification and Restrictions	275	(30)
Simplification	275	(20)
Restrictions	295	(10)
Determinism and Datatype Assignment	305	(18)
What Is Ambiguity?	305	(10)
The Downsides of Ambiguous and Nondeterministic Content Models	315	(3)
Some Ideas to Make Disambiguation Easier	318	(5)
Part II. Reference
Element Reference	323	(48)
Compact Syntax Reference	371	(38)
Datatype Reference	409	(58)
Part III. Appendixes
A. DSDL	451	(7)
B. The GNU Free Documentation License	458	(9)
Glossary	467	(6)
Index	473