XML Schemas and Namespaces

An XML schema defines the tag hierarchy for a specific XML file. XML allows for great flexibility in the definition of the tags and how they are nested. This open structure is a double-edged sword because the disadvantage of such flexibility is that it is difficult for the receiving program to add any context to the data. The receiving program has to add a great deal of logic to understand the relationships and structure of the data. We will see how schemas solve this problem.

Namespaces allow multiple schemas to be used at the same time within a document. It is not hard to see that as you do more with XML, you will eventually be working with multiple XML documents. Namespaces are a way to keep these documents ...

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