Special Edition Using XSLT

Mapping XML Schema Types

The process of converting or transforming XML conforming to one schema into XML conforming to a different schema can be thought of as a simple mapping problem. That is, you can map attributes and elements from one schema to that of the target schema. It sounds easy, but there are challenges. For example, an element might not always map to a target element; it might instead map to an attribute. Before you look at mapping element and attribute types, it’s important to consider the larger application.

Situations where an application might have to reconcile different XML document schema involve four possible cases:

• Converting from one format to another (one-to-one)

• Converting a single format to multiple formats (one-to-many) ...