XSD file for code generation, hints needed

Question

I need to make an xsd file for CodeSynthesis's XSD. There will be multiple schemas for different response types. As you can see in a sample XML file some elements have a type attribute, and some have nil attribute. These attributes provide no info for parsing, I already know types and set them in xsd file properly. Besides that, I don't know which elements are nillable. Can these attributes be some way skipped in xsd schema, or I should write for each element:

<xsd:complexType>
    <xsd:attribute name="type" type="TypeAttr" fixed="integer"/>
    <xsd:attribute ref="nil"/>
</xsd:complexType>

where

<xsd:attribute name="nil" type="xsd:boolean"/>

That's one of the XML files:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<account>
  <access-key>bla-bla-bla</access-key>
  <billing-error-date type="date" nil="true"></billing-error-date>
  <default-ticket-report-id type="integer">0</default-ticket-report-id>
  <default-time-zone nil="true"></default-time-zone>
  <description nil="true"></description>
  <disk-usage type="integer">38048</disk-usage>
  <flagged-for-billing-error type="boolean">false</flagged-for-billing-error>
  <force-ssl type="boolean">false</force-ssl>
  <id type="integer">1</id>
  <plan>micro</plan>
  <subdomain>companyname</subdomain>
  <text-markup>markdown,textile,plain</text-markup>
  <title>companyname</title>
  <features>
    <attachments>true</attachments>
    <ssl>false</ssl>
    <storage>512</storage>
    <time_tracking>false</time_tracking>
    <max_people>10</max_people>
    <max_pages>99999</max_pages>
    <beta>false</beta>
  </features>
  <notebook_pages>0</notebook_pages>
  <created-at>2011-02-16T13:50:09Z</created-at>
  <updated-at>2011-04-07T09:11:10Z</updated-at>
</account>

According to w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlschema-0-20010502/#Nils the nil must have the xsi namespace; is this a typo or is the attribute name just nil (and an attribute just like any other)? — ThomasRS
It is just an attribute like any other, xsi namespace is not used here. However it is used to indicate empty elements too. — vian
yeah well your question becomes really generic when it is just any attribute ;) — ThomasRS
You might find marxsoftware.blogspot.com/2008/11/… interesting :P — ThomasRS

vian vian · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-08T02:17:19

I used the following to add type and nil attribute support.

<xsd:complexType name="UString">
  <xsd:simpleContent>
    <xsd:extension base="xsd:string">
      <xsd:attribute name="type" type="TypeAttr" fixed="string" use="optional"/>
      <xsd:attribute name="nil" type="xsd:boolean" use="optional"/>
    </xsd:extension>
  </xsd:simpleContent>
</xsd:complexType>

<xsd:complexType name="UInteger">
  <xsd:simpleContent>
    <xsd:extension base="xsd:integer">
      <xsd:attribute name="type" type="TypeAttr" fixed="integer" use="optional"/>
      <xsd:attribute name="nil" type="xsd:boolean" use="optional"/>
    </xsd:extension>
  </xsd:simpleContent>
</xsd:complexType>

<xsd:simpleType name="TypeAttr">
  <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
    <xsd:enumeration value="datetime"/>
    <xsd:enumeration value="integer"/>
    <xsd:enumeration value="boolean"/>
  </xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType>

XSD file for code generation, hints needed

1 Answers