Re: newbie question: How to use xml-schema ?

[Rick Jelliffe <ricko@allette.com.au>]

 From: "Michael Brennan" <Michael_Brennan@allegis.com>

> Yes, you'll need to use another parser. If you use Microsoft tools, you can
> check MSXML 4, which is currently in beta. You'll find it at
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?url=/downloads/sample.asp?ur
> l=/MSDN-FILES/027/001/677/msdncompositedoc.xml. It has added preliminary
> support for XML Schema and includes documentation on how to use XML Schema
> with the XML SDK. There is also an interesting prototype GUI tool at
> http://www.topologi.com/ that works with MSXML 4, though it does not work
> yet with this latest release.
 
The July beta of MSXML 4 seems to have a new bug in the XSLT which
makes it impossible to use for Schematron, so we would recommend people
stick with the April[1] beta for the moment.  (The bug is that when
generating XSLT documents, the correct namespace is not generated.
This would effect any other system which uses XSLT to generate XSLT
too. Perhaps Schematron is the only one...Erik's Examplotron uses SAXON
extension for his implementation so it would not be affected anyway.
Schematron can run on most other XSLT engines.)   

It would be nice if Microsoft would fast-track a fixed version of
this. I hope the push for the new .NET API does not take resources
away from their MSXML offering...  

This is the danger of using betas, and please it is not a criticism of MS
(though, perhaps, it shows that their regression testing is not a major
concern for their beta releases.)  It is nice when any company puts out
a beta or a free version of software.  

The Topologi Schematron Validator[2] is a free Windows GUI which
allows validation using Schematron Schemas, DTDs and XML Schemas.
It also allows XSLT transformations and simple editing. It is good
for hacking systems where there are multiple directories and multiple
transformation, for teaching, for developing schemas, and for creating 
friendly validators.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe
Topologi, Pty. Ltd.

[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?URL=/code/sample.asp?url=/MSDN-FILES/027/001/594/msdncompositedoc.xml 
[2] http://www.topologi.com