Definitive XML Schema

By Priscilla Walmsley

Book Overview

"XML Schema 1.1 has gone from strong data typing to positively stalwart--so powerful it can enforce database level constraints and business rules, so your data transfer code won't have to. This book covers the 1.1 changes--and more--in its 500 revisions to Priscilla Walmsley's 10-year best-selling classic. It's the guide you need to navigate XML Schema's complexity--and master its power " --Charles F. Goldfarb For Ten Years the World's Favorite Guide to XML Schema--Now Extensively Revised for Version 1.1 and Today's Best Practices To leverage XML's full power, organizations need shared vocabularies based on XML Schema. For a full decade, Definitive XML Schema has been the most practical, accessible, and usable guide to working with XML Schema. Now, author Priscilla Walmsley has thoroughly updated her classic to fully reflect XML Schema 1.1, and to present new best practices for designing successful schemas. Priscilla helped create XML Schema as a member of the W3C XML Schema Working Group, so she is well qualified to explain the W3C recommendation with insight and clarity. Her book teaches practical techniques for writing schemas to support any application, including many new use cases. You'll discover how XML Schema 1.1 provides a rigorous, complete specification for modeling XML document structure, content, and datatypes; and walk through the many aspects of designing and applying schemas, including composition, instance validation, documentation, and namespaces. Then, building on the fundamentals, Priscilla introduces powerful advanced techniques ranging from type derivation to identity constraints. This edition's extensive new coverage includes Many new design hints, tips, and tricks - plus a full chapter on creating an enterprise strategy for schema development and maintenance Design considerations in creating schemas for relational and object-oriented models, narrative content, and Web services An all-new chapter on assertions Coverage of new 1.1 features, including overrides, conditional type assignment, open content and more Modernized rules for naming and design Substantially updated coverage of extensibility, reuse, and versioning And much more If you're an XML developer, architect, or content specialist, with this Second Edition you can join the tens of thousands who rely on Definitive XML Schema for practical insights, deeper understanding, and solutions that work.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0132886723
• ISBN13: 9780132886727
• Release Date: September 2012
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 727 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Many insights, not mere facts.

There are quite a few books about XML Schema in the market. There are quite a few freebie tutorials on the web too. These may serve your purpose well enough if you are merely trying to acquire an overview of the subject. But if you are like me, learning XML schema on the job and having trouble finding specific answers as you design a new schema or worse extend an exisiting schema, this book is certainly for you.Namespaces are a fairly complex topic and they are handled very well in this textbook. Much of my confusion about how to mix and match the SimpleContent, SimpleType, ComplexContent and ComplexType tags vanished after I read the relevant chapters. The last chapter on reuse and extension is a gem and shows that Walmsley is not one of the rapidly proliferating clan of writers whose chapters are mere rephrasings of the manuals. She brings impressive credentials from the W3C and it shows in each page.I was in the middle of extending a schema when I ran out and bought this book. I ran into some truly murky waters with deterministic and non deterministic schemas when my Microsoft XML parser threw up its hands and refused to validate my XML against my XSD because it was non deterministic. I could find few satisfactory solutions elsewhere. This book gave me all the answers I needed.If you are a serious schema developer, buy this book, its well worth the money.

Both a tutorial and a reference

I'm really pleased with this book. It is the clearest introduction to the subject I have found. It even made namespaces seem simple. It can be read sequentially, but also used as a reference. Some reviewers thought it was just a retelling of the spec (which in itself is quite useful given the complexity of the spec!) but I think it had a lot more than that, because it explained why you use certain functionality and in what situations, something the spec doesn't seem to address. The chapter on Extensibility and Reuse was particularly helpful to us in writing schemas that can be extended and reused by others who want to customize ours. I also really like that the author is part of the committee that designed XML Schema - it gives me confidence that the book is accurate and current.

Clarity!

I read this book from cover to cover this weekend. That fact alone tells you something about its contents! If you are the sort of person who finds the W3C's XML Schema specification completely transparent and easy to read then Priscilla Walmsley's book is useless fluff. If, however, like virtually everyone on the planet, you find the XML Schema specification indecipherable, do yourself a favour: either forget totally about the abomination that is XML Schema OR read Priscilla's book and discover that XML Schema is finite, is do-able and has certain simplifying characteristics (such as the fact that all named components must be global) that make it tolerable.The process of reading this book is effortless. Every sentence is crafted to be illuminating without the merest hint of padding. This book is really a comprehensive reference manual that reads like a coherent novel while at the same time lacking pretentious verbiage.As 2002 dawned, I resolved not to buy any more books...I have far too many and all the specifications are available free online anyway. Having struggled for days with a few online articles and the three XML Schema specification documents, I decided that I really did need the help of a book...but thought it unlikely that I would find one that was little more than a rehash of the specs. In a sense, Priscilla's book is a rehash of the specs. in as much as it doesn't present anything more than can be found in the specs. The presentation is what counts here though: clear examples for EVERY aspect of the syntax; well-organized content that at every point assumes no more knowledge that has been presented earlier.Thanks Priscilla for changing my perception of XML Schema and for providing a book that was easy to read and that is now my number one reference for XML Schema :-)