Re: Namespaces,W3C XML Schema (was Re: ANN: SAX FiltersforNamespaceProcessing)

[Francis Norton <francis@redrice.com>]

Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:
> 
> "Local types may be used to specify elements with the same name but
> different types in different content models. Use of this feature makes
> it simpler to write complex schemas which will be processed by
> schema-specific processors. However it may also make it harder to
> process the data with general purpose processors such as presentation or
> editing tools.
> 
> Why would local types make life harder for general purpose processors? If a presentation or editing tool is presented with a local restriction of a type, why can't it work with that? If it can't work with that, why can't it use an editor for the base type?

Hi, that was me. I may be misunderstanding your point - two
locally-typed elements in the same schema may have the same name but
totally different types, with no relationship by restriction to anything
in common, or at all (apart from our old friend the ur-type). 

But to illustrate what I was saying, take a general purpose processor -
me. Take the schema I'm currently working with for a retail finance
middleware application - around 450 complex types, 350 simple types (and
I'm sure that there are document-oriented systems of far greater
complexity than this). Using local types made schema design and
maintenance much simpler than if every element name in the schema had to
be uniquely typed. But it it also makes it harder for me to comprehend
correctly even the relatively small (1-2Kb) messages that we typcially
deal with.

Francis.