XML Schema (W3C)

XML Schema (W3C)

1.0, Part 1 Structures (Recommendation),
1.0, Part 2 Datatypes (Recommendation),
1.1, Part 1 Structures (Recommendation),

XML Schema, published as a W3C recommendation in May 2001, is one of several XML schema languages. It was the first separate schema language for XML to achieve Recommendation status by the W3C. Because of confusion between XML Schema as a specific W3C specification, and the use of the same term to describe schema languages in general, some parts of the user community referred to this language as WXS, an initialism for W3C XML Schema, while others referred to it as XSD, an initialism for XML Schema Definition. In Version 1.1 the W3C has chosen to adopt XSD as the preferred name, and that is the name used in this article.

Like all XML schema languages, XSD can be used to express a set of rules to which an XML document must conform in order to be considered 'valid' according to that schema. However, unlike most other schema languages, XSD was also designed with the intent that determination of a document's validity would produce a collection of information adhering to specific data types. Such a post-validation infoset can be useful in the development of XML document processing software, but the schema language's dependence on specific data types has provoked criticism.