Adding import elements
As schemas become larger, it is often desirable to divide their content among
several schema documents for purposes such as ease of maintenance, reuse, and
readability. You can use an import element to bring
in definitions and declarations from an imported schema into the current schema.
The imported schema can come from a different namespace than the current
schema does.
You can add multiple import elements
to an XML schema, however, prefixes and namespaces have to unique amongst
the imported schemas.
The following instructions were written for the Resource perspective, but
they will also work in many other perspectives.
To add an import element,
follow these steps:
- Open your XML schema in the XML schema editor.
- In the Outline view, select your schema. The entire
schema and its contents should be displayed in the Graph view.
- In the Graph view, right click in the Directives section
and click Add Import.
- In the Properties view, click the General tab and click
the More button
to the right of the
Schema
location field.
- If you want to import an XML schema located in the workbench, select
the Workbench projects radio button and click
Next.
- Select the schema you want to import and click
Finish.
- If you want to import an XML schema located on the Web, select
the HTTP radio button and click
Next.
- Type the URL of the XML schema and click
Finish.
Note: A local copy of the schema will not be stored in the workbench.
Every time you validate your schema, the schema's contents will be checked
from the URL you specify.
- The XML schema editor will retrieve the namespace for the imported
XML schema file and display it as read-only in the Namespace field.
- If necessary, type a unique prefix for this namespace in the
Prefix field.
- Click the Documentation tab if you want
to provide any information about this import element. The
Documentation page
is used for human readable material, such as a description, and the
App
Info page can be used to provide information for applications.
Once you have added an import element to your XML schema, when
you define new elements, attributes, complex types, or simple types where
you can specify type information, any declarations from the included schema
will be available in the Type list for the element,
attribute, complex or simple type.