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Asked: 2026-06-14T19:51:10+00:00

I’m writing my own validating XML parser. (Yes, I’m aware this is a very

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I’m writing my own validating XML parser. (Yes, I’m aware this is a very complex task, and that using an existing product such as libxml2 or Xerces would be the saner choice. This is not an option however, so please bear with me.)

Parsing the XML and XSD files into tree structures should not be very difficult. However I cannot seem to figure out what algorithm to use to validate the XML tree against the XSD one.

I’ve done some research, but everything I find is either too generic (how to write compilers, etc.) or too specific (such as incremental validation).

I have some ideas of my own but they’re all rather complex, so I’d really like to be a bit more sure about the validity (no pun intended) of my ideas before I start coding away.

Thanks in advance, don’t hesitate to ask for more details if you think you can help!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    There’s an awful lot of legwork in writing an XSD processor and getting it to pass the 50,000 or so tests in the W3C test suite. However if you’re stuck on the key algorithm for validating instances against the grammar, this is a good starting point:

    http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/XML_Europe_2003.html

    You should also get hold of a copy of Aho and Ullman which contains the algorithms that Henry references.

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