Question

Is there a way to prevent empty elements of the form <myElement/> being used in your xml? In other words, can you specify in your xsd that <myElement/> is invalid?

Using nillable="false" doesn’t work, nor does minOccurs="1" – both of those allow
<myElement/>.

Answer 1

If you’re trying to prevent the element from appearing at all, you can mark it with maxOccurs="0". I’m guessing this isn’t what you’re after, so if you’re trying to make sure there are always attributes attached to the complex element, then you have to specify usage="required" on at least one of the attributes or use an attribute group. If myElement is a simple type and you want to make sure it has a value, then you could always restrict the type of it. If you want a non-zero string, then you could do:

<xsd:element name="myElement">
    <xsd:simpleType>
        <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
            <xsd:minLength value="1" />
        </xsd:restriction>
    </xsd:simpleType>
</xsd:element>