• From: "Pete Cordell" <petexmldev@t...>
• To: "XML Developers List" <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 20:14:02 -0000

Hi,

I've managed to confuse myself about namespaces and schemas - please help!

If I define an unqualified local element such as 'name' in:

<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
        targetNamespace="http://www.abc.com" xmlns="http://www.abc.com"
        elementFormDefault="unqualified">

    <xsd:element name="MyAddress" type="AddressType"/>

    <xsd:complexType name="AddressType">
        <xsd:sequence>
            <xsd:element name="name" type="xsd:string"/>
        </xsd:sequence>
    </xsd:complexType>

</xsd:schema>


Then, if I have the following instance:

<MyAddress xmlns="http://www.abc.com">
    <name>Pete</name>
</MyAddress>

when deciding what to validate 'name' against, is it treated as if it is {no 
namespace}:name, {http://www.abc.com}:name (in which case validation will 
fail) or something else?

In other words when working out the 'full' name of an element, does the 
definition of the default namespace effectively override the {no namespace} 
for a local element or not?

Going a bit further... if (validated by another schema) I have:

<MyDetails xmlns="http://www.abc.com">
    <ans:MyAddress xmlns:ans=http://www.abc.com/addr>
        <name>Pete</name>
    </ans:MyAddress>
</MyDetails>

Is name's full name {no namespace}:name (due to being defined as 
unqualified), {http://www.abc.com}:name (due to the default namespace being 
http://www.abc.com), or {http://www.abc.com/addr}:name (due to being local 
to ans:MyAddress)?

Many thanks,

Pete.

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: local unqualified element names and default namespaces
    • From: "Fraser Goffin" <goffinf@g...>