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Re: which class of programming languages, XML Schemalanguage b

• From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
• To: Mukul Gandhi <mukulg@softwarebytes.org>
• Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2022 08:48:03 +0000

Well, I would say that XSD is indeed a "formal computer language", but not a "programming language"; I don't think you can describe something as a programming language unless it is Turing-complete.

I don't know of any universally accepted categorisation scheme for formal computer languages, and without such a scheme you can't say where a particular language fits; but it's certainly reasonable to describe XSD as a constraint specification language or as a data definition language (if indeed those two categories are distinct).

Michael Kay
Saxonica

> On 11 Mar 2022, at 03:46, Mukul Gandhi <mukulg@softwarebytes.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
>     I've been thinking on this topic, since a while now, and thought of seeking opinion of list members here. As the subject of this mail says, I'm interested to know, which class of programming languages, XML Schema language belongs.
> 
> As far as I know, the computer language theory says that, a language is a set of strings (or, a set of words as few books say). In that sense, XML Schema is definitely a formal computer language.
> 
> Most of the time, I tend to compare XML Schema's type system with inheritance based OO language type system. That alone, doesn't make XML Schema exactly equivalent to the nature of an OO language. XML Schema, misses the procedural semantics of an OO language. XML Schema is more like a constraint specification language. An XML schema, specifies a set of constraints (specified as, element declarations, attribute declarations, type definitions etc), that certain set of XML instance documents should follow.
> 
> Any thoughts, about this topic shall be enlightening to know.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Mukul Gandhi

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: which class of programming languages, XML Schemalanguage belongs
    • From: Pete Cordell <pete++xmldev@codalogic.com>
  • Re: which class of programming languages, XML Schemalanguage belongs
    • From: Mukul Gandhi <mukulg@softwarebytes.org>

• References:
  • which class of programming languages, XML Schema language belongs
    • From: Mukul Gandhi <mukulg@softwarebytes.org>