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 Browse 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.