Schema Structures

Schema structures define and describe a class of XML documents. Schemas may also provide for the specification of additional document information, such as normalization and defaulting of attribute and element values.

Any application that consumes well-formed XML can use the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XML Schema: Structures specification to create and describe structures and constraints for XML documents.

Because schemas have the ability for self-documentation, they can be used to define, describe, and categorize XML vocabularies for classes of XML documents.

Structures allow you to describe content models for schemas.

This section covers the following topics.

• Definitions and Declarations
• Data Type Definitions
• Declaring Attributes
• Declaring Elements
• Defining Complex Types
• Content Models
• Notation Declarations
• Using Content from Other Schemas
• Documenting Schemas
• Using Other Namespaces