Chapter 6
RELAX NG and Schematron
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:
- Why you need more ways of validating
- Definition of RELAX NG and its aims
- How to write and use RELAX NG
- How to convert between RELAX NG and other validation methods
- Definition of Schematron and its aims
- How to write and use Schematron
Validation of XML documents is an exceedingly common requirement, especially when your software is accepting XML from another source. Unfortunately, checking whether the XML you have received meets the expectations of the software that will process it can be difficult, as there are a myriad of rules that may need to be applied. You’ve already met two different ways of validating XML documents to make sure they conform to a specific format: document type definitions (DTDs) and W3C XML Schema. Both of these techniques have their uses but neither offers a full validation solution; in fact, most experts agree that there isn’t a single technique that can cope with every validation rule that you may want to apply. In this chapter you meet two further solutions, RELAX NG and Schematron. Neither of these is expected to completely replace DTDs or Schemas; they are actually both designed to be used in conjunction with other validation methods. The expectation is that combining two or more techniques will enable users to completely specify the rules that a document must follow before it is said to be valid and therefore suitable for consumption by their business applications.
In this chapter ...
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