On this page, a wild collection of questions are answered. If you have contributions either in question or as answer, then please contribute via the mailinglist.
See also XML::Compile::SOAP::FAQ.
X::C tries to give you a simple data-structure in Perl, however XML does not always map directly only that. One such situation is where you have blocks within a list of elements. In such case, the block gets a name which is composed by the type of block and the first element in the block. You will encounter these names in some error messages and when these block have a maxOccurs larger than 1.
Example. The name cho_tic
is used to represent the following nameless
choice block:
<choice> <element name="tic" /> <element name="tac" /> <element name="toe" /> </choice>
In the default behavior, only the "local" names of the XML elements are used in the Perl structure. However, it is very well possible that the same name appears in more than on XML name-space, used within the same data structure. So see this often with substitutionGroups.
When collissions happen, you have to switch to use
< key_rewrite =
'PREFIXED' >> in the compile rules. All keys will
now get rewritten: the name-space prefix will be prepended. The prefixes
are defined by the mapping table provided with the < prefixes
> option
or by default from the XML schemas.
See Key rewrite for the full list of options.
Be aware that the "2001" schema specification is continuously under development. So, the namespace has not been changed over time, but the content has.
One of the more noticeable problems with schemas is the specification of the namespaces to be used for the schema. In older schema's, like many important protocols, there was no way to specify whether elements should be used qualified or not. Some schema's lack the target namespace declaration. Those fields did not exist in earlier versions of the "2001" spec; it was defined in the documentation.
So, what you may encounter is something like:
<schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
where (in the current syntax) it should have been
<schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" targetNamespace="http://my-namespace" elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
The default for targetNamespace
is "namespace-less". The *FormDefault
defaults are unqualified
, which is a pity: most schemas will use
qualified elements.
Of course, you can add these fields to the schema file, but that violates the intergrity of that external resource. Therefore, use options:
my $schema = XML::Compile::Schema->new; $schema->importDefinitions("schema.xsd" , target_namespace => 'http://my-namespace' , element_form_default => 'qualified' );
You may also provide all these options with new()
directly.
my $schema = XML::Compile::Schema->new("schema.xsd" , target_namespace => 'http://my-namespace' , element_form_default => 'qualified' );
If you use the XML::Compile::Cache object, which extends ::Schema, then
you have a nice printIndex
method which shows you what has been read.
The official idea about the use of schema's, is that you get the latest version of them on the moment you start the application. There are two major problems with that:
In general, IMO as author of the XML::Compile suite, you should never want this dynamic, unpredictable behavior!
Besides, the content of the schemaLocation
attribute to import
,
include
and schema
elements are usually broken, missing and/or
flawed. You can better do it by hand.
Collect the schema's you need in a directory. The name of the schema file does not need to means anything useful. Then, add the location where the schema's are found:
my $schema = XML::Compile::Cache->new; $schema->addSchemaDirs($my_schema_dir);
Add the mapping from namespaces to filenames (you may provide an ARRAY of names or use the same namespace multiple times). It is useful to have a constant defined for your namespace.
use constant MY_NS => 'http://very-long'; $schema->knownNamespace(&MY_NS => 'schemafile.xsd'); $schema->importDefinitions(MY_NS, @options);
There is also a less clean solution:
my $schema = XML::Compile::Cache->new('schemafile.xsd', @options);
When you have many xsd's to include, you may do this:
my @xsds = glob "$my_schema_dir/*.xsd"; my $schema = XML::Compile::Cache->new; $schema->knownNamespace(&MY_NS => \@xsds); $schema->importDefinitions(MY_NS, @options);
or
my $schema = XML::Compile::Cache->new(\@xsds, @options);
Many schema's are broken. XML::Compile is not a good tool to figure-out
what is wrong with the schema. Have you tried xmllint
? Sometimes, you
get sufficient help adding to the top of your script:
use Log::Report mode => 'DEBUG';
When you know what is wrong, you can overrule parts of the schema by redefining elements; simply: the last definition for an element wins. For instance:
$schema->importDefinition(<<'_PATCH'); <schema ....> <element name="has_bug"> ... </element> _PATCH
Of course, you can also use an external file for this.
This is a piece of code actually used. It shows various complications when an external schema is "loaded" "dynamically" into another schema.
# In the top of your script my $schema_dir = '/usr/share/schemas'; my $xyz_ns = 'http://www.xyzeorder.com/workflow'; my $xyz_xsd = 'xyzSchema.xsd'; # In the main part of your script my $schema = XML::Compile::Cache->new(....); $schema->addSchemaDirs($schema_dir); $schema->importDefinitions($xyz_xsd, target_namespace => $xyz_ns); $schema->addPrefixes(xyz => $xyz_ns); $schema->addKeyRewrite('PREFIXED(xyz)');
The schema "forgets" to mention its targetNamespace
, so it is
overruled. The ::Cache extension handles prefixes much nicer than
the ::Schema base object. So, with reading/writing the hash keys
which relate to the elements in this schema will have xyz_
as
prefix for clarity.
You do specify the data in your structure, but it seems not to be recognized. See wrong error message
You may get an error message about a "missing data item" on a higher structural level than where the problem actually is. This especially happens with unions and substitutionGroups. The problem is cause by the fact that on a certain structural level, multiple alternatives may appear which only differ many levels deep in structure. X::C needs to scan all the alternatives, and when all fail it does not know which of the alternatives was "the best" alternative.
Try turning on debugging with:
use Log::Report mode => "DEBUG";