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XML Types

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Database Systems

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Synonyms

XML schemas

Definition

To constrain the structure of allowed XML documents, for instance with respect to a specific application, a target schema can be defined in some schema language. A schema consists of a sequence of type definitions specifying a (possibly infinite) class of XML documents. A type can be assigned to every element in a document valid w.r.t. a schema. As the same holds for the root element, the document itself can also be viewed to be of a specific type. The schema languages DTDs, XML Schema, and Relax NG, are, on an abstract level, different instantiations of the abstract model of unranked regular tree languages.

Historical Background

Brüggemann-Klein et al. [3] were the first to revive the theory of regular unranked tree automata [14] for the modelling of XML schema languages. Murata et al. [10] provided the formal taxonomy as presented here. Martens et al. [8] characterized the expressiveness of the different models and provided type-free abstractions.

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Recommended Reading

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hasselt University and Transnational University of Limburg, Diepenbeek, Belgium

    Frank Neven

Authors
  1. Frank Neven
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Correspondence to Frank Neven .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble, CNRS and LIG, Grenoble, France

    Sihem Amer-Yahia

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Neven, F. (2018). XML Types. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_1563

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