Preamble

Lasaris

What is Relax NG

  • "Relax New Generation" modeling language for XML
  • Simpler and easier to use than XML Schema
  • Based on Relax (REgular LAnguage for XML) and
  • TREX (Tree Regular Expressions for XML by James Clark)
  • Having both XML and non-XML Syntax
  • published first in 2003
  • later became ISO/IEC 19757 standard
  • uses .rng and .rnc file extensions

Motivation

XML Schema:

  • too complicated (more than 200 pages of specification)
  • ambiguous in some situations
  • tries to cover all applications area (documents, databases and all in between)
  • hardly fully implemented
  • see http://www.xml.com/lpt/a/2002/01/23/relaxng.html for more

More on Relax NG advantages

From relaxng.org:

  • is simple
  • is easy to learn
  • has both an XML syntax and a compact non-XML syntax
  • does not change the information set of an XML document
  • supports XML namespaces
  • treats attributes uniformly with elements so far as possible
  • has unrestricted support for unordered content
  • has unrestricted support for mixed content
  • has a solid theoretical basis
  • can partner with a separate datatyping language (such W3C XML Schema Datatypes)

Specifications, Resources

Based on RELAX designed by OASIS-OPEN:

Now ISO standard:

RELAX NG home page (Key resource to Relax NG!):

RELAX NG — an excellent book by Eric van der Vlist:

Relax NG Tools

Validators:

Editors, other tools:

  • Firedocs — a Firefox plug-in
  • XML Operator — OSS (BSD Licence)
  • XML editors supporting Relax NG such as <oXygen/> xml editor — commercial
  • See http://relaxng.org/#editors for more

Compact syntax

(following samples from http://relaxng.org/compact-tutorial-20030326.html)

<addressBook>
   <card>
      <name>John Smith</name>
      <email>js@example.com</email>
   </card>
   <card>
      <name>Fred Bloggs</name>
      <email>fb@example.net</email>
   </card>
</addressBook>

DTD model

<!DOCTYPE addressBook [
<!ELEMENT addressBook (card*)>
<!ELEMENT card (name, email)>
<!ELEMENT name (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT email (#PCDATA)>
]>

RELAX NG pattern

element addressBook {
   element card {
      element name { text },
      element email { text }
   }*
}

Cardinality

If the addressBook is required to be non-empty, then we can use + instead of *:

element addressBook {
   element card {
      element name { text },
      element email { text }
   }+
}

Optional

Now let’s change it to allow each card to have an optional note element [1]

element addressBook {
   element card {
      element name { text },
      element email { text },
      element note { text }?
   }*
}
# and this is a comment :-)

Choice

If we want to have a choice of two (more) alternatives for one content model (eg. in card):

<addressBook>
   <card>
      <givenName>John</givenName>
      <familyName>Smith</familyName>
      <email>js@example.com</email>
   </card>
   <card>
      <name>Fred Bloggs</name>
      <email>fb@example.net</email>
   </card>
</addressBook>

Choice (2)

element addressBook {
   element card {
      # here is the option
      (element name { text }
         | (element givenName { text },
            element familyName { text })),
      element email { text },
      element note { text }?
   }*
}

Attributes

Specifies that addressBook has attributes instead of elements:

element addressBook {
   element card {
      attribute name { text },
      attribute email { text }
   }*
}

Alternatively attributes or elements

  • The , and | connectors can combine element and attribute patterns without restriction.
  • For example, the following pattern would allow a choice of elements and attributes independently for both the name and the email part of a card: 
element addressBook {
   element card {
      (element name { text }
         | attribute name { text }),
         (element email { text }
            | attribute email { text })
   }*
}

Then all alternatives are valid

<card name="John Smith" email="js@example.com"/>
<card email="js@example.com" name="John Smith"/>
<card email="js@example.com"><name>John Smith</name></card>
<card name="John Smith"><email>js@example.com</email></card>
<card><name>John Smith</name><email>js@example.com</email></card>

Defining a grammar

grammar {
   start = AddressBook
   AddressBook = element addressBook { Card* }
   Card = element card { Name, Email }
   Name = element name { text }
   Email = element email { text }
}
  • Uppercase names are type names, while
  • lowercase names are element names in this example.
  • Elsewhere it could be different but still there can be types and concrete occurencies.

Recursion

The "inline" content is defined recursively [2].

inline =
   (text
      | element bold { inline }
      | element italic { inline }
      | element span {
         attribute style { text }?,
         # here is the recursion
         inline
         })*

Datatyping

element number { xsd:integer }
element numberWithNote {
   xsd:int,
   attribute note { text }
}
element email {
   xsd:string { minLength = "6" maxLength = "127" }
}

Enumerations

  • for attributes 
element card {
   attribute name { text },
   attribute email { text },
   attribute preferredFormat { "html" | "text" }
}
  • for element text content 
element card {
   element name { text },
   element email { text },
   element preferredFormat { "html" | "text" }
}

Lists

  • lists of primitive values separated by white space(s)
  • the cardinality of occurencies can be specified 
element list_of_two_floats {
   list { xsd:float, xsd:float }
}
element list_of_some_doubles {
   list { xsd:double+ }
}
element list_of_some_double_pairs {
   list { (xsd:double, xsd:double)+ }
}

Interleave

  • for specification of occurence in any order
  • example: name, email 
element addressBook {
   element card {
      element name { text }
      & element email { text }
      }*
   }

Modularity

  • we can (re)use some external .rnc schema 
start = inline
inline =
(text
   | element code { inline }
   | element em { inline }
   # etc
)*

Then we could allow the note element to contain inline HTML markup by using external as follows:

element addressBook {
   element card {
      element name { text },
      element email { text },
      element note { external "inline.rnc" }?
   }*
}

Namespaces

  • prefixed or default namespaces can be used 
namespace eg = "http://www.example.com"
element eg:foo { empty }
namespace = "http://www.example.com"
element foo { empty }