Resource Directory for Schematron 1.5

Overview

The Schematron is a language and toolkit for making assertions about patterns found in XML documents. It can be used as a friendly validation language and for automatically generating external annotation (links, RDF, perhaps Topic Maps). Because it uses paths rather than grammars, it can be used to assert many constraints that cannot be expressed by DTDs or XML Schemas.

Schematron can be trivially implemented using XSLT in two stages.

The Topologi Schematron Validator is GUI-based tool for Windows. It is useful for checking large numbers of files, for developing schemas and for experimentation. It supports Schematron schemas embedded in W3C XML Schemas.
The reference Academia Sinica Computing Centre Schematron 1.5 implementation sits on top of any XSTL implementation. It is useful if you want to create command-line or batch tools, and you want to tailor the output.
The ZVON Schematron is an alternative implementation for XSLT. It provides simple output mapping, and is straight-forward and well-coded.
The FourThought 4Suite is a Python-based server system which offers Schematron validation.
For Perl users, Kip Hampton's XML::Schematron modules bring Schematron functionality as a Perl module.
For iteractive editing with Schematron, use the Academia Sincia Schematron in conjunction with James Clark's XT XSLT processor. XT provides line numbers in the standard format used by FSF GNU Emacs, Edinburgh's XED editor, and many others.

A range of implementations are available for various situations:

Schematron can be used in any language for which there is an XSLT implementation available (e.g. FourThought's Python version of XSLT, Java, C++, Perl) and it is also possible to create a native implementation without using XSLT. Early versions were prototyped using OmniMark.

This document is a RDDL Resource Directory Description for Schematron 1.5, which is an XHTML document with special XLinks that locate various resources useful for Schematron, including schemas (Schematron, DTD, XML Schema).

Related Resources for Schematron

Schematron 1.5 Reference Implementation for XSLT

The reference implementation is a software project based around skeleton1-5.xsl. It has been tried on 12 different and the test results are available on that page, togther with API documentation and samples of .BAT files for running the code with various XSLT processors.

Various tools include an error browser and a validator for interactive debugging in editors.

Schematron 1.5 tools are still being ported from 1.3. Some implementations at the Sinica site are pre-1.5 (see below). These are should be fine for schemas that just use patterns, rules, asserts, reports and names. The 1.5 version will also mark the start of the Source Forge open source website as the central location. The 1.5 Specifications, DTDs and Schema resources are not completely stable yet; they will be being upgraded over the next few weeks as feedback and features are improved.

Schematron 1.5 specification

The Schematron 1.5 spec

Well known URI

The well known URI for Schematron is http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron.

Root namespace URI

http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron is the namespace of the root element of a schematron schema.

XML Schema for Schematron 1.5

An XML Schema for Schematron 1.5. If possible, please use your own local or cached copy.

To help systems that do not understand RDDL, put the following attributes on the sch:schema element:

       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron
          http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron/schematron1-5.xsd"

XML DTD for Schematron 1.5

A DTD for Schematron1.5. If possible, please use your own local or cached copy.

We do not recommend using the DTD except for document creation, because some implementations of XSLT do not handle relative file location correctly.

If you are not using namespace prefixes, put the following document type declaration at the top of your schema (after any XML declaration and stylesheet declaration):

<!DOCTYPE schema PUBLIC "http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron"
   "http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron/schematron1-5.dtd">

If you are using namespace prefixes, put the following document type declaration at the top of your schema (after any XML declaration and stylesheet declaration):

<!DOCTYPE sch:schema PUBLIC "http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron"
   "http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron/schematron1-5.dtd"
[
  <!ENTITY % sp "sch:">
]>

Guides, Tutorials and Articles

Mail archives for the Schematron Love-in

Quick Reference Guide by Rick Jelliffe, including simplified DTD and EBNF productions for paths and expressions.

Leigh Dodds' XSLT UK Conference paper Schematron: validating XML using XSLT

XML.COM article validating XML with Schematron by FourThought's Chimezi Thomas-Ogbuji.

(Unavailable?) Sunworld article Introducing the Schematron by FourThought's Uche Ogbuji. Might be good place to start for XSLT people.

ZVON online tutorial by Miloslav Nic.

XMLHACK interview with Rick Jelliffe by Simon StLaurent.

XML.COM article Simple XML validation with Perl by Kip Hampton. Might be good place to start for Perl people.

XML.COM article The W3C XML Schemas Specification In Context by Rick Jelliffe.

UCLA paper Comparative Analysis of Six Schema Languages by Dongwon Lee and Wesley W. Chu from June 2000.

Resource Directory (RDDL) for Schematron 1.5

Overview

Related Resources for Schematron

Schematron Home Page

Planned Schematron Project Page