XML Schema Problem

by Subbu Allamaraju on March 31, 2009

Bill Burke on problems with XML schema

As you rev your service and your schema you’re going to have to support a lot of different media types. What would make things easier is if XML Schema supported polymorphism. That way a client could ask for “application/vnd1+xml” format and still receive and validate a newer version of the schema. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you can do this in XML schema. Yes you could extend various types from the parent to create a newer version of a schema, but a validator would not be able to enforce a polymorphic relationship with its parent AFAIK.

XML can deal with this problem, but not XSD (with some exceptions). The solution is to throw the schema to the wind.

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