xmlsoapxsdwsdl

MinOccurs 0 and nillable true

In my wsdl I have an element:

<xsd:element minOccurs="0" name="birthDate" nillable="true" type="xsd:dateTime"/>

I know that the nillable="true" allows null values. Does this mean that it allows an empty xml element? i.e.

<birthDate/>
Solution

  • Setting nillable="true" means that the <birthDate> tag can appear as follows:

    <birthDate xsi:nil="true"/>

    However, since you also set minOccurs="0", you could also omit the <birthDate> tag completely from the XML and it would also still validate against your XSD.

    Note that <birthDate/> or <birthDate></birthDate> is not considered null according to XSD rules.

    Have a look at this great blog post for further reading.