Doing More With XML Schemas (part 2) - Feeling The Force

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In "The Phantom Menace", when Qui-Gon Jinn first meets Anakin Skywalker on an unscheduled stop at the Outer Rim world of Tatooine, he immediately realizes that there is something special about the boy: he is destined to be a Jedi.

Or is he?

"The Phantom Menace" and subsequent episodes certainly resolve that question conclusively - but what does that have to do with XML schemas?

Quite a lot, as you'll see shortly. First, though, let's quickly revisit a segment from the first part of this article, in which I defined a complex data type named "starWarsEntity",

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<xsd:complexType 
name="starWarsEntity">
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element name="name" type="xsd:string"/>
<xsd:element 
name="species" type="xsd:string"/>
<xsd:element name="language" type="xsd:string"/>
<xsd:element 
name="home" type="xsd:string"/>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>
<!-- 
more definitions -->
</xsd:schema>

and then extended it to create a new "Human" sub-type.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<xsd:complexType 
name="Human">
<xsd:complexContent>
<xsd:extension base="starWarsEntity">
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element 
name="gender"
type="xsd:string"/>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:extension>
</xsd:complexContent>
</xsd:complexType>
<!-- 
more definitions -->
</xsd:schema>

Let's now extend things a little further, and derive one more datatype from the "Human" complex type - we'll call this one "Jedi", and make sure that it inherits all the characteristics of the "Human" type, together with one additional attribute. Here's the definition:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<xsd:complexType 
name="Jedi">
<xsd:complexContent>
<xsd:extension base="Human">
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element
name="midichlorian-count" 
type="xsd:integer"/>
</xsd:sequence>
</xsd:extension>
</xsd:complexContent>
</xsd:complexType>
<!-- 
more definitions -->
</xsd:schema>

In case you're wondering - midi-chlorians are microscopic symbiotic creatures that swim around in the bloodstream of creatures in the Star Wars universe. In Star Wars lore, every Jedi possesses an unusually large number of these creatures, which are the reason they are so receptive to the Force; in "The Phantom Menace", Qui-Gon Jinn uses this midi-chlorian count to determine Anakin's eligibility for Jedi-hood.

Here's an XML file built around this schema:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gallery xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<character 
xsi:type="Jedi">
<name>Luke Skywalker</name>
<species>Human</species>
<language>Basic</language>
<home>Tatooine</home>
<gender>Male</gender>
<midichlorian-count>9000</midichlorian-count>
</character>
</gallery>

What I just showed you was an example of deriving, by extension, one new type from another existing type, which is itself derived from a base type. This type of extensibility is what makes XML Schemas so powerful...and so easy to maintain.

Next: The Next Level >>
 

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