XML Schema

Name

xs:documentation — Human-targeted documentation.

Synopsis

<xs:documentation
           source            = xs:anyURI
           xml:lang          = xml:lang
           >
           Content: ({any})*
</xs:documentation>

May be included in: xs:annotation

Description

xs:documentation is a container for human-readable documentation in plain text or structured formats. Its content model is open and can accept any element from any namespace (with a lax validation only—W3C XML Schema elements included here must be valid). xs:documentation can be used to include any kind of information.

Its content is similar to xs:appinfo (which is reserved for application processable information), except that it has xml:lang attribute; this is allowed in xs:documentation, but forbidden for xs:appinfo).

Restrictions

Foreign attributes cannot be included in xs:documentation. The source attribute is also underspecified in the Recommendation. This could lead to interoperability issues between applications that rely on xs:documentation.

Example

<xs:element name="author" type="author">
  <xs:annotation>
    <xs:documentation xml:lang="en">
      The author of a book.
    </xs:documentation>
    <xs:documentation xml:lang="fr">
      Designe l'auteur d'un livre.
    </xs:documentation>
  </xs:annotation>
</xs:element>

Attributes

source

Can be used to provide a link to the source of the information when a snippet is included, or it can be used as a semantic attribute to qualify the type of information included.

xml:lang

Language used for the documentation.