Hi all This is not strictly a Python question, but as I am writing in Python, and as I know there are some XML gurus on this list, I hope it is appropriate here.
XML-schemas are used to define the structure of an xml document, and to validate that a particular document conforms to the schema. They can also be used to transform the document, by filling in missing attributes with default values. In my situation, both the creation and the processing of the xml document are under my control. I know that this begs the question 'why use xml in the first place', but let's not go there for the moment. Using minixsv, validating a document with a schema works, but is quite slow. I appreciate that lxml may be quicker, but I think that my question is still applicable. I am thinking of adding a check to see if a document has changed since it was last validated, and if not, skip the validation step. However, I then do not get the default values filled in. I can think of two possible solutions. I just wondered if this is a common design issue when it comes to xml and schemas, and if there is a 'best practice' to handle it. 1. Don't use default values - create the document with all values filled in. 2. Use python to check for missing values and fill in the defaults when processing the document. Or maybe the best practice is to *always* validate a document before processing it. How do experienced practitioners handle this situation? Thanks for any hints. Frank Millman -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
