Possible to Have Schema Without a Root Node? 2

[BoulderBum]

Is it possible to define an XSD such that no root node is defined, just the possibility of a mix of several nodes (such as you'd have for XHTML)?

If so, is there a simple example anyone can provide? I can't seem to Google the answer or get a working example going.

 

[k5tm]

Since there is an XML Schema describing XHTML here, it can be done. This is not a simple example however.

Have you tried the W3Schools tutorial on Schema? Perhaps that might help.

Tom Morrison

http://www.liant.com

 

[tsuji]

As the op has the mastery of dot net framework, this is the appropriate starting point with sample code.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;317463

 

[BoulderBum]

Thanks guys!

This is still fuzzy for me, though. The entire XHTML schema is a bit overwhelming for someone so new to schema like me (though the link is useful and I did manage to strip down the XHTML schema to meet my needs).

Also, the .NET example seems like what I'm looking for, but the XmlValidatingReader I used barfed with any sample data that doesn't contain a root element (which was the original source of my confusion).

It turns out that when I was using the XmlValidatingReader, I was setting the XmlNodeType to "Document" which does require a root element. Setting the node type to "Element" cleared up that problem.

Things appear to be working now, though on a side note, do you guys know if there's anything I can do in a schema to enforce self-closing tag vs. empty tags?

In particular, is there a way I can tweak my schema to require <br/> and not <br></br>?

 

[tsuji]

>In particular, is there a way I can tweak my schema to require <br/> and not <br></br>?
Not that I know of. But you can get that particular result with a supplementary xsl transformation. This is how.
[tt]
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="

http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xslutput method="xml" indent="yes" encoding="utf-8" />
<xsl:template match="@*|node()|comment()|processing-instruction()">
<xsl:if test="count(descendant::*)">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()|comment()|processing-instruction()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="not(count(descendant::*))">
<xsl:if test="normalize-space(.)">
<xsl:copy>
<xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()|comment()|processing-instruction()"/>
</xsl:copy>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:if test="not(normalize-space(.))">
<xsl:element name="{name(.)}" />
</xsl:if>
</xsl:if>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
[/tt]

 

[BoulderBum]

Thanks for the reply.

The issue is that I want to store the schema for an XML field in SQL Server 2005. The schema I have works to restrict to only the elements I want, but it appears that SQL Server doesn't allow text nodes at the root when a schema of elements is defined.

As a workaround, I think I'll just wrap the input in a root <span> element at the application level, though I don't like the extra code involved with that solution.