XML Schema

Name

xs:token — Whitespace-replaced and collapsed strings.

Derived from:

xs:normalizedString

Primary:

xs:string

Known subtypes:

xs:language, xs:NMTOKEN, xs:Name

Facets:

xs:enumeration, xs:length, xs:maxLength, xs:minLength, xs:pattern, xs:whiteSpace

<xs:simpleType name="token" id="token">
  <xs:restriction base="xs:normalizedString">
    <xs:whiteSpace value="collapse"/>
  </xs:restriction>
</xs:simpleType>

Description

The lexical and value spaces of xs:token are the sets of all the strings after whitespace replacement—i.e., after any occurrence of #x9 (tab), #xA (linefeed), and #xD (carriage return) is replaced by an occurrence of #x20 (space) and collapsing (i.e., the contiguous occurrences of spaces are replaced by a single space, and leading and trailing spaces are removed).

More simply said, xs:token is the most appropriate datatype to use for strings that do not care about whitespaces.

Restrictions

The name xs:token is misleading since whitespaces are allowed within xs:token. xs:NMTOKEN is the type corresponding to what is usually called “tokens.”

Example

The element:

<title lang="en">
  Being a Dog Is 
  a Full-Time Job
</title>

is a valid xs:token and its value is the string "Being a Dog Is a Full-Time Job", where all the whitespaces have been replaced by spaces, leading and trailing spaces have been removed and contiguous sequences of spaces have been replaced by single spaces.