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Re: Validation of complex content

• From: Edwin Dankert <edankert@gmail.com>
• To: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
• Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 10:38:51 +0100

Hello Michael,

Thank you very much for your reply. I really like this solution (and I
wasn't aware of this feature in Saxon) it would fit in very nicely
with our current set of tools and it would allow to specify this
complex constraint in the same place as the definition of the element
in the XML Schema.

However the validation tool we're trying to put together is supposed
to support an open standard and even though I believe that at least
everybody on this list should buy a copy of your tools if only to
support your enormous contribution to the XML language and community,
I am not sure if I can convince the others in the standardisation
committee.

This actually brings me to a separate but I think related question:

Is there an agreed validation mechanism for open-standards based on
XML, i.e. do they only release a set of files which allow for
validation (xml schema, relaxng) or do they release a tool which
provides the validation when not all constraints can be captured using
these languages? Note: not sure what the distinction is between a
validation tool and a validation schema, when considering NVDL,
Schematron and XSLT, XProc.

What I am trying to find out is if it would be acceptable for the
standard to include in their schemas assertions which are tied to a
specific schema processor and force each member/consumer which wants
to validate their data 'fully' to buy a license of this third party
tool? Note: this assumes that these third-party assertions are ignored
by other tools, so the consumers can still validate their data up-to a
certain level.

Kind regards,
Edwin

On 30 March 2012 17:34, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
> If you don't mind a solution that's tied to one schema processor, Saxon
> allows you to use the XSD 1.1 xs:assert feature, and to call out to java
> from the assertions, so you can do arbitrarily complex procedural
> validation.
>
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica
>
>
> On 30/03/2012 13:35, Edwin Dankert wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I hope you can guide me in the best way to proceed with this validation
>> issue.
>>
>> I have a XML structure with most of the nodes representing simple
>> data, like names, references and numeric values.
>>
>> <person>
>>   <name>John<name>
>>   <salary>1000<salary>
>> </person>
>>
>> However some of the numeric nodes can not only represent the data as
>> simple numeric values, they can also be specified as an expression and
>> point to other items in the document.
>>
>> <person xmlns="x">
>>   <name>John<name>
>>   <salary>100000/$no-of-employees}<salary>
>> </person>
>>
>> The expression language is quite complex and cannot be represented by
>> a regular-expression. The syntax is however specified using EBNF and
>> only the syntax needs to be validated.
>>
>> A XML Schema for this exists:
>>
>> <schema>
>>   <element name="person">
>>     <sequence>
>>       <element name="name" type="Name">
>>       <element name="salary" type="string">
>>     </sequence>
>>   </element>
>> <schema>
>>
>> The goal is to have a standalone tool which can validate using the
>> more simple constraints specified by the schema and also validate the
>> values which contain the expression language.
>>
>> My preferred solution would involve validating the expression value
>> syntax directly from the EBNF using standard XML technologies but
>> don't believe this is currently an option.
>>
>> My questions now is: what would be the best way to validate these
>> values in your opinion or how was this solved in any of your previous
>> projects? (Note: The validator tool-set already includes Java, NVDL,
>> XSLT 2.0, XML Schema 1.0.)
>>
>> Any suggestions are very welcome.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Edwin
>>
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  • Re: Validation of complex content
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>