Question

Is it possible to declare an attribute on a complex type, which will be inherited from every element declared inside this complex type?

I have the use case, that I need to annotate every element in an xml, if it has changed or not(@mutated={true|false}). The only solution I see, is to add this attribute to every element, what is very creepy.

Answer 1

Ok, its not possible you need to extend every type with this attribute and make a new type.

Here is my definition for a simple and a complex type:

Extend simple type:

<xs:complexType name="areaMutatedType">
    <xs:simpleContent>
        <xs:extension base="register-ws:areaType">
            <xs:attribute ref="register-ws:mutated" />
        </xs:extension>
    </xs:simpleContent>
</xs:complexType>

Extend complex type:

<xs:complexType name="relationMutatedType">
    <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element name="id" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" />
    </xs:sequence>
    <xs:attribute ref="register-ws:mutated" use="optional"/>
</xs:complexType>

Here some good resources:

• http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-flexschema/
• http://www.learn-xml-schema-tutorial.com/Attributes.cfm