An Introduction to XML Schemas - Choose Your Schema
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There are actually quite a few different Schema specifications to choose from, but for maximum compatibility and support, the W3C recommendation should be used. If you’re familiar with XML, you’ll know that you don’t always need to use a DTD or a Schema to make a well formed XML document, but if you want to share information with somebody else, it’s best to use a Schema or DTD to make sure you are giving each other the correct data in the correct format. Additionally, if you are producing XML documents that contain a lot of data, it’s good to have a Schema or DTD to validate the documents with to ensure consistency and validity.
The great thing about XML is that you can create your own mark-up tags. This is all well and good, but what if you give an element the same name that someone else has given an element in their own XML vocabulary? How do you create uniqueness between the two documents that transcends naming conventions? The answer is namespaces, which act as a unique identifier to schemas. This is achieved by targeting the namespace in your schema and using a prefix before your element declarations.
The namespace used is part of the XML declaration at the beginning of your schema document. Because XML schema documents are essentially XML documents, they must begin with the XML declaration:
<?xml version=”1.0”?>
Directly after this needs to come the namespace declaration:
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema>
Next: Element Declarations >>
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