An attribute group definition is an association between a name
and a set of attribute declarations. Named groups of attribute declarations
can greatly facilitate the maintenance and reuse of common attribute declarations
in an XML schema.
The following instructions were written for the Resource perspective,
but they will also work in many other perspectives.
To add an attribute
group to an XML schema, complete the following steps:
- Open your XML schema in the XML schema editor.
- In the Outline view, right-click the Attributes folder
and click Add Attribute Group. It appears
in the Attributes folder.
- Select your new group, and in the Design view, right-click the
attribute group and select . In the New Name field, type a name
for the attribute group and click OK.
- To add an attribute, right-click your attribute group in the Outline
view, click Add Attribute. The attribute
appears below the attribute group in the Outline view.
- Select the attribute, and in the Design view, click the current
(default) name of the attribute, then type the new Name.
- In the Design view, click the current (default) attribute type
and select a type from the menu. Alternately, you can select browse to invoke
the Set Type menu for more options. The Set Type dialog lists all
built-in and user-defined types currently available. You can change the Scope of
the list by selecting one of the following options:
- Workspace. Lists all of the types available in
your workspace.
- Enclosing Project. Lists all of the types available
in the project that contains your file.
- Current Resource (default). List all of the types
available in your current file.
- Working Sets. List all the types available within
the selected working set.
- An attribute reference provides a reference to a global attribute.
To add an attribute reference, in the Design view, right-click the complex
type containing the element, and click Add Attribute Ref.
A declaration that references a global attribute enables the referenced
attribute to appear in the instance document in the context of the referencing
declaration. Select the reference, then in the Properties view, select the
attribute you want it to reference from theReference drop-down
- An attribute group reference provides a reference to an attribute
group. To add an attribute group reference, in the Design view, right-click
the complex type containing the element, and click Add Attribute
Group Ref. A declaration that references a global attribute
enables the referenced attribute to appear in the instance document in the
context of the referencing declaration. Select the reference, then in the
Properties view, select the attribute group you want it to reference from
theReference drop-down.
- An any element enables element content according
to namespaces, and the corresponding any attribute element
enables attributes to appear in elements. To add an any attribute,
right-click your attribute group and click Add Any Attribute.
The any appears below the attribute group in the Outline
view. You can specify the following values for an any attribute:
- For a namespace value, you can select:
- ##any: this allows any well-formed XML from any namespace.
- ##local : this allows any well-formed XML that is not declared
to be in a namespace.
- ##other: this allows any well-formed XML that is not from the target
namespace of the type being defined.
- ##targetNamespace : this is shorthand for the target namespace
of the type being defined.
- For a processContents value, you can select:
- skip: the XML processor will not validate the attribute
content at all.
- lax: the XML processor will validate the attribute content as much
as it can.
- strict: the XML processor will validate all the attribute content.