XML Schema defining only attribute datatypes and all node values as string

Question

Is it possible to define a XML Schema which only defines attribute datatypes and all node values as string?

I am dealing with a very large XML file which has the following structure:

<A>
    <A_x1 label="xyz" id="1234">string data</A_x1>
    <A_x2 label="xzy" id="1235">string data</A_x2>
    <A_x...>string data</A_x...>
    ...
</A>
<B>
    <B_x1 label="yzx" id="1236">string data</B_x1>
    <B_x2 label="zyx" id="1237">string data</B_x2>
    <B_x...>string data</B_x...>
    ...
</B>
<C>
    ...
</C>
...

The number of subnodes of A, or B, or ... is variable!

And sometimes there is a node A_x1 and sometimes there is not.

All i know for sure is every leave node has two attributes, where 'label' is of datatype string and 'id' is of datatype int.

I think this can be defined by :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema attributeFormDefault="unqualified" elementFormDefault="qualified" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <xs:attribute name="label" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:attribute name="id"    type="xs:short"/>
</xs:schema>

But how do i define a schema which states every node named "A_x..." or "B_x..." or ... holds data of type string? Or every leave node holds data of type string.

I could not find a way to use regular expressions for node names in an XML schema, is this even possible? Or what is the solution to this problem? If there is one.

Michael Kay · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-23 10:02:25Z

Unfortunately, even in XSD 1.1, the only way to allow elements that have any name is to permit them with an xs:any wildcard, and xs:any does not allow you to constrain the types of the elements that it matches.

You could define all the constraints with XSD 1.1 assertions:

every $e in child::* satisfies if exists($e/@id) then $e/@id castable as xs:short

but frankly, if you're doing this, then you're getting so little value out of XSD that you might as well use a different technology for your validation, e.g. XSLT or schematron.

Another possibility (often overlooked) is to validate using a pipeline that first transforms (using XSLT), and then validates (using XSD). In this case the transformation part would convert all the element names A_x1 into standard element name AA say.

A third possibility is to generate a schema for your specific instance document (again using XSLT) and then validate against that schema. In this case your generated schema could define all the A_x1 elements as members of the substitution group of some abstract element AA, and these elements would therefore be validated against the type defined for AA.

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