XCSL: XML constraint specification language

• Main Author: Jacinto, Marta Henriques
• Publication Date: 2003
• Other Authors: Librelotto, Giovani Rubert, Ramalho, José Carlos, Henriques, Pedro Rangel
• Format: Article
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/609
• topic: XML; Document semantics; XCSL; XML-schema; Schematron; Constraint specification

After being able to mark-up text and validate its structure according to a document type specification, we may start thinking it would be natural to be able to validate some nonstructural issues in the documents. This paper is to formally discuss semantic-related aspects. In that context, we introduce a domain specific language developed for such a purpose: XCSL. XCSL is not just a language, it is also a processing model. Furthermore, we discuss the general philosophy underlying the proposed approach, presenting the architecture of our semantic validation system, and we detail the respective processor. To illustrate the use of XCSL language and the subsequent processing, we present two case-studies. Nowadays, we can find some other languages to restrict XML documents to those semantically valid - namely Schematron and XML-Schema. So, before concluding the paper, we compare XCSL to those approaches.