Question

If I’m defining a schema (using Visual Studio 2010’s XML Editor) for a business object, how can I import external namespaces? I’m extending the schema for Google Commerce Search, but how do I define the namespace-prefixed elements? e.g. when querying some of my product data, one element ,edited, belonging to the app namespace looks like:

<app:edited>2012-01-17T17:22:05.182Z</app:edited>

Visual Studio suggests I might need to import the .xsd file for the http://www.w3.org/2007/app namespace. Do I need to find other .xsd files for the rest of the namespaces already included in the Google product feeds? e.g. xmlns:sc and xmlns:scp Where do I find these? Or am I going about this completely wrong?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema id="entry"
    xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    targetNamespace="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
    elementFormDefault="qualified"
    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
    xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app"
    xmlns:sc="http://schemas.google.com/structuredcontent/2009"
    xmlns:scp="http://schemas.google.com/structuredcontent/2009/products">

  <xs:element name="entry">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element name="id" type="xs:anyURI"></xs:element>
        <xs:element name="published" type="xs:date"></xs:element>
        <xs:element name="updated" type="xs:date"></xs:element>
        <xs:element name="title" type="xs:string"></xs:element>
        <!-- how do I define the <app:edited type="date" /> element here?? -->
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

Answer 1

You first need to get hold of the schemas. Then you can add them into visual studio’s schema store:

This means that any XML instance documents you author in visual studio have access to the schema store from a validation perspective.

Then you modify your schema. First import the new schema:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema ... xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app" ... >
  <xs:import namespace="http://www.w3.org/2007/app" />
  ...

Then make a reference to the type you want to use from that schema

<xs:element name="entry">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:sequence>
      ...
      <!-- how do I define the <app:edited type="date" /> element here?? -->
      <xs:element ref="app:edited" />
    </xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>