Hi Folks,
I have a schema with a large complexType hierarchy. I want a tool that visually displays the hierarchy. All of the tools that I’ve seen display the hierarchy in a sideways fashion. But I don’t think sideways, I think top to bottom.
Please allow me to explain …
Here is a simple complexType hierarchy:
<xsd:complexType name="Publication">
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element name="Title" type="xsd:string" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
<xsd:element name="Author" type="xsd:string" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
<xsd:element name="Date" type="xsd:gYear"/>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>
<xsd:complexType name="BookPublication">
<xsd:complexContent>
<xsd:extension base="Publication">
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element name="ISBN" type="xsd:string"/>
<xsd:element name="Publisher" type="xsd:string"/>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:extension>
</xsd:complexContent>
</xsd:complexType>
Here is how Oxygen XML visualizes the hierarchy:
While that is truly an excellent visualization, it is not how my mind works. The complexTypes are a “hierarchy” so my mind wants to see the base complexType at the top and subtypes underneath, like this:
For the project that I am working, I used Powerpoint to create the hierarchy. Below I show the structure of the hierarchy (A, B, C, etc. are not the actual complexType names). I seek something other than manually creating the hierarchy using Powerpoint. Is there a tool that visualizes a schema’s complexType hierarchy in a top-to-bottom fashion? /Roger
