Table of contents

Appendices

3.4 Undeclared Target Namespaces

In [Basic Concepts: The Purchase Order] we explained the basics of XML Schema using a schema that did not declare a target namespace and an instance document that did not declare a namespace. So the question naturally arises: What is the target namespace in these examples and how is it referenced?

In the purchase order schema, po.xsd, we did not declare a target namespace for the schema, nor did we declare a prefix (like po: above) associated with the schema's target namespace with which we could refer to types and elements defined and declared within the schema. The consequence of not declaring a target namespace in a schema is that the definitions and declarations from that schema, such as USAddress and purchaseOrder, are referenced without namespace qualification. In other words there is no explicit namespace prefix applied to the references nor is there any implicit namespace applied to the reference by default. So for example, the purchaseOrder element is declared using the type reference PurchaseOrderType. In contrast, all the XML Schema elements and types used in po.xsd are explicitly qualified with the prefix xsd: that is associated with the XML Schema namespace.

In cases where a schema is designed without a target namespace, it is strongly recommended that all XML Schema elements and types are explicitly qualified with a prefix such as xsd: that is associated with the XML Schema namespace (as in po.xsd). The rationale for this recommendation is that if XML Schema elements and types are associated with the XML Schema namespace by default, i.e. without prefixes, then references to XML Schema types may not be distinguishable from references to user-defined types.

Element declarations from a schema with no target namespace validate unqualified elements in the instance document. That is, they validate elements for which no namespace qualification is provided by either an explicit prefix or by default (xmlns:). So, to validate a traditional XML 1.0 document which does not use namespaces at all, you must provide a schema with no target namespace. Of course, there are many XML 1.0 documents that do not use namespaces, so there will be many schema documents written without target namespaces; you must be sure to give to your processor a schema document that corresponds to the vocabulary you wish to validate.