XML Schema Developer's Guide

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A schema specifies the structure of an XML document and constraints on its content.

While XML is the meta-language that defines the rules for defining tag languages, a schema is a formal specification of the grammar for one tag language. A schema is useful for validating the document content—to determine whether a document is a valid instance of the grammar expressed by that schema—and for describing your grammar for use by others.

See these topics for more information on authoring XML Schemas:

• Introduction to Schemas
• Defining Elements and Attributes
• Content Model
• Data Types
• Extensibility
• XML Schemas and the DOM
• XML Schemas and Namespaces
• Representing the XML Schema as a DTD