Question

I’m trying to create an xml-schema (xsd) to validate an xmlfile.

<a>
    <b>
        <c>...</c>
        <d>...</d>
    </b>
    <b>
        <c>...</c>
        <e>...</e>
            <d>...</d>
    </b>
<a>

1 a-element.
Multiple b-elements, that have some content.

I want to validate that a is present in the file, and 1 or more occurances of b. I’m not interested to know what is inside of b.

So this is what I tried:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
    <xs:element name="a">
        <xs:complexType>
            <xs:sequence>
                <xs:element name="b" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
            </xs:sequence>
        </xs:complexType>
    </xs:element>
    <xs:element name="b">
        <xs:complexType>
            <xs:sequence>
                <xs:any minOccurs="1"/>
            </xs:sequence>
        </xs:complexType>
    </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

I hoped that the any-element would do the magic trick, but it does not. What am I doing wrong?

edit:
XmlSpy gives me this error: Element ‘c’ not defined in DTD/Schema.

Answer 1

You don’t need the additional ‘b’ in the schema, I think what you’re looking for is this:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
  <xs:element name="a">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element name="b" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="unbounded">
          <xs:complexType>
            <xs:sequence>
              <xs:any maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="1" processContents="lax"/>
            </xs:sequence>
          </xs:complexType>
        </xs:element>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

This states that you have <a> as a root node, and it can contain one or more <b>s

Edit: Sorry, didn’t read the full question – try the above!

Second edit: Another attempt above!