RE: [xml-dev] XML Schema: nillable vs. minOccurs

[Jeff Lowery <Jeff.Lowery@creo.com>]

1) Using nillable elements allows you to maintain full structure of the
markup in the instance document, even when meaningful content is missing. It
also, perhaps, gives the receiver a little extra insurance that nothing got
'lost' in the generation/translation of a document. Not an ironclad
guarantee, though...

2) Nil (or null) can be taken to mean 'undefined', rather than 'does not
exist'; although it's doubtful many applications will care about such fine
distinctions.