schemaxsdredefinesimpletype

How do we make integer datatype behave like String data type in XML/XSD?

I have the following XSD/XML type definition. It has been used by number of business units/applications.

<xsd:simpleType name="NAICSCodeType">
        <xsd:annotation>
            <xsd:documentation>NAICSCode</xsd:documentation>
        </xsd:annotation>
        <xsd:restriction base="xsd:integer">
            <xsd:minInclusive value="000001"/>
            <xsd:maxInclusive value="999000"/>
        </xsd:restriction>
    </xsd:simpleType>

As this one defined as "integer" data type, it strips the leading zeros of input. Eg: 0078 become 78 after parsing.

We need to pass the input as it is without stripping leading zeros eg 0078 become 0078 after parsing.

The ideal fix is to change the integer to string in restriction base. It is non-starter due to buy in from other groups.

Is there a way to redefine the above data type for desired outcome?

How do I do it?

Books and net dont seem to have helped too much either, so I am starting to question if this is theoretically possible at all

Solution

  • It sounds as if the values in question are not in fact integers, but strings consisting only of numeric digits. Why does the schema say that they are integers if 78 and 078 and 0078 are three distinct values instead of three ways of naming the same value?

    You can of course restrict xs:integer by requiring leading zeroes in the lexical space, or a fixed number of digits. But that is unlikely to have any effect on the way software reading the document re-serializes it or passes values to other software.