What's the best way of allowing a client to review an XML Schema?

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+2 Q:

What's the best way of allowing a client to review an XML Schema?

We are working on a schema for a client, and we want them to be able to review it so that tyey can understand it. They are not "untechnical", but a schema file or large diagram seems very unfriendly for the purposes of someone learning what it contains. Further down the line other developers are going to have to learn to use the schema, and a decent documenting system would be good.

Is there a tool or diagram or similar that is useful for this? How do you handle this situation? What do you recommend?

+2 A:

pjp 2009-08-11 14:32:49

The diagram that we get is way too big to fit on a single sheet. I note that your diagram has a fair few '+'s which implies that you present it in segments. That might be sensible.

mj2008 2009-08-11 14:54:39

Yes it's best to create complex types for each of the major reusable pieces (e.g. an address structure) and then reuse these types where they need to go. These smaller pieces should be easier to validate than validating the whole schema in one go.

pjp 2009-08-11 15:16:02

@pjp: I'm curious: does your above schema have any recursion? i.e. a complexType X that somewhere inside it contains an element of that same complexType X? e.g. a Sequence (in the above) might include another CustomerStatementMessage. I'm also wondering if you might know of where I might find examples of real-world schema? (I'm making a schema-related tool, and it helps to optimize it for the common cases). Thanks for any help!

13ren 2009-08-12 03:04:50

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What's the best way of allowing a client to review an XML Schema?

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