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John --
Try the MapManager tool in XML-DBMS v2 alpha 3 [1]. This allows you to
generate a DTD from a relational database, which you could then find
another tool to convert to an XML Schema. The major problem with this is
that you would lose data type information. One possibility is to modify
the code to generate Data Types for DTDs [2] -- this would be easy --
which could then be used to generate data types in XML Schemas.
If you want a commercial product, I suggest trying HiT Allora, which
I've described in a list of XML / database middleware [3]. There are
other products on the list that generate XML Schemas as well. (I point
out Allora simply because I'm familiar with it.)
Finally, I advise you to be somewhat aware of all of these tools. While
it is possible to generate an XML schema from a database schema, the XML
schema is not necessarily what you want. At a minimum, the generated
names are probably less than useful.
More problematic is that the generated structures are not necessarily
what one might get if one set out to design an XML schema for the same
information. For example, XML virtually encourages you to wrap things
like address information in an Address element, while addresses in a
database are generally flat. Another problem is how to handle
many-to-one relationships in an XML schema.
-- Ron
[1] http://www.rpbourret.com/xmldbms/index.htm
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/dt4dtd
[3] http://www.rpbourret.com/xml/ProdsMiddleware.htm#allora
John M Lauck wrote:
> Does anyone know if there is a freeware/opensource application that
> generates an xml schema from a database? (prefereably MySQL, but any is
> fine) I haven't found anything that specifically does this. Most
> applications I have come across advertise a database schema output, but
> not necessarily an XML Schema.
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