sequence - no, all - no, choice - no

[melograno]

Sorry if this question or a similar one was already submitted into
this newsgroup, but my investigations on this topic were not
successfull.

An external application that is not under my control generates an XML
documents with 5 fields. 3 of them (f1, f3, f5) are mandatory, 2 of
them (f2 and f4) are optionals. The field order is unpredictable. A
couple of examples follow.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<thedocument>
<f1>11</f1>
<f3>13</f3>
<f5>14</f5>
<f2>15</f2>
</thedocument>

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<thedocument>
<f4>11</f4>
<f1>12</f1>
<f5>13</f5>
<f3>14</f3>
</thedocument>

I'm trying to define an XSD for this legacy document, but
- sequence does not work, since the order is not fixed
- all does not work, since some of elements are optional
- sequence of choice does not work

Do you have any suggestion for solving this problem?

Thanks

pierre

 

[Priscilla Walmsley]

Hi Pierre,

"all" should work for what you want. You can make the elements in an
all group optional, as in:

<xs:all>
<xs:element name="f1"/>
<xs:element name="f2" minOccurs="0"/>
<xs:element name="f3"/>
<xs:element name="f4" minOccurs="0"/>
<xs:element name="f5"/>
</xs:all>

Hope that helps,
Priscilla

 

[melograno]

Thanks a lot, Priscilla, it worked. Part of my understanding on "all" was wrong.
pierre

 

[Arthur]

Hi, I have a similar dilema, however the elements f1,f2,f3... as well as
appearing in any order, can also appear any number of times. e.g.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<thedocument>
<f1>11</f1>
<f1>12</f1>
<f1>16</f1>
<f3>13</f3>
<f5>14</f5>
<f2>15</f2>
<f3>21</f3>
<f3>22</f3>
</thedocument>

I understand 'all' can only occur 0 or 1 times, this is no good.
sequence is no good because of the order. What else can I do?

Thanks a lot, Priscilla, it worked. Part of my understanding on "all" was wrong.
pierre