XML Schema Definition Problem

[Mingwei Jiang]

I've encountered a very weird problem when using XML schema. I think the issue lies in the namespace definition, but I cannot figure it out. When I use noNamespaceSchemaLocation, it works fine, but when I defined a target name space, there will be validation errors in eclipse3.1 web tools platform saying "cvc-complex-type.2.4.a: Invalid content was found starting with element 'orderperson'. One of '{"" rderperson}' is expected." Could anyone help me on this?

Below is the sample.xsd file

  
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
targetNamespace="http://sample.com"
xmlns="http://sample.com">
<xs:element name="shiporder">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="orderperson" type="xs:string" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>

And sample.xml lies below:

   
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<shiporder xmlns="http://sample.com"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://sample.com sample.xsd">
<[I]orderperson[/I]></orderperson>
</shiporder>

Italic orderperson is where Eclipse says error. Thanks.

[Peer Reynders]

Your options are:

You can give it what it wants: <orderperson>""</orderperson>

You can make the element entirely optional by modifying the Schema: <xs:element name="orderperson" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />

You have make a major revision your schema to allow an empty element.

Something along the lines of (i.e. I didn't try this):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    targetNamespace="http://sample.com"
    xmlns="http://sample.com">
  <xs:element name="shiporder">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element name="orderperson" />
          <xs:complexType>
            <xs:simpleContent>
              <xs:extension base="xs:string" />
            </xs:simpleContent>
          </xs:complexType>
        </xs:element>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

Your schema requires a string. A string of length zero is an empty string which still needs to be represented as "". Empty content is basically the absence of elements � to have empty content your element has to be a complexType. To contain character data, the complexType contains simpleContent which itself contains an extension of string.

[Mingwei Jiang]

Thank you guy! But actually I found the problem lies in the namespace definition. If I define a prefix in the xml file namespace definition and add the prefix to the root element, then it works.

But why when I try to add that prefix to the subelement, it doesn't work again?