Let me apologize in advance for the fact that this question is not directly a xmlbeans issue. Instead, it's something I ran into several times while using xmlbeans. I know I'd better take it to a decent xml forum, but with all the expertise here, let me give it a try nevertheless.

I'm having trouble translating my object inheritance models to xmlschema and have illustrated this in the attached example xsd and xml.

In my example I have a canvas for drawing a new painting and the xsd contains the instructions for drawing this painting. According to instructor Bob, a painting constists of two basic parts: background and foreground. An object is either a background or foreground object. In the final stage, Bob removes objects that turned out ugly. This can be any type of object.

The schema defines an abstract type "shape" which "fgshape" and gbshape" inherit from. It uses substitutiongroups with head "shape". <drawBackground> only accepts background shapes, <drawForeground> only accepts foreground shapes, while <eraseShapes> accepts everything.

The problem is that the painting as defined in painting.xml is not valid according to the schema, because <eraseShapes> expects an element of type <shape>, rather than <cloud> or its substitutiongroup <fgshape>. The error xmlbeans gives is: Validation error at line: 12: Expected element '[EMAIL PROTECTED]://prutser.cx/schemas/painting' instead of '[EMAIL PROTECTED]://prutser.cx/schemas/painting' here in element [EMAIL PROTECTED]://prutser.cx/schemas/painting

In an OO programming language this is not a problem. Cloud extends fgshape, while fgshape extends shape, so you'll have no problem passing a cloud instance to eraseShapes.

How does one tackle this problem? Am I using substitutionGroups incorrectly? I do want to be able to use the names of the concrete elements, rather than <shape type="cloud" color="white" cloudtype="cumulunimbus"/> if that's possible.

Erik van Zijst
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema";
	targetNamespace="http://prutser.cx/schemas/painting";
	xmlns="http://prutser.cx/schemas/painting";
	xmlns:tns="http://prutser.cx/schemas/painting";
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance";>

	<xs:element name="painting">
		<xs:complexType>
			<xs:sequence>
				<xs:element ref="drawBackground"/>
				<xs:element ref="drawForeground"/>
				<xs:element ref="eraseShapes"/>
			</xs:sequence>
		</xs:complexType>
	</xs:element>
	
	<xs:element name="drawBackground">
		<xs:complexType>
			<xs:sequence>
				<xs:element ref="bgshape" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
			</xs:sequence>
		</xs:complexType>
	</xs:element>
	
	<xs:element name="drawForeground">
		<xs:complexType>
			<xs:sequence>
				<xs:element ref="fgshape" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
			</xs:sequence>
		</xs:complexType>
	</xs:element>
	
	<xs:element name="eraseShapes">
		<xs:complexType>
			<xs:sequence>
				<xs:element ref="shape" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
			</xs:sequence>
		</xs:complexType>
	</xs:element>

	<xs:element name="shape" type="shape-type" abstract="true"/>
	<xs:complexType name="shape-type" abstract="true">
		<xs:attribute name="color" type="xs:string" use="required"/>
		<xs:attribute name="preferredBrush" type="xs:string" use="optional"/>
	</xs:complexType>
	
	<xs:element name="bgshape" type="bgshape-type" abstract="true"/>
	<xs:complexType name="bgshape-type" abstract="true">
		<xs:complexContent>
			<xs:extension base="shape-type"/>
		</xs:complexContent>
	</xs:complexType>

	<xs:element name="cloud" type="cloud-type" substitutionGroup="bgshape"/>
	<xs:complexType name="cloud-type">
		<xs:complexContent>
			<xs:extension base="bgshape-type">
				<xs:attribute name="cloudtype" type="xs:string" use="required"/>
			</xs:extension>
		</xs:complexContent>
	</xs:complexType>
	
	<xs:element name="fgshape" type="fgshape-type" abstract="true"/>
	<xs:complexType name="fgshape-type" abstract="true">
		<xs:complexContent>
			<xs:extension base="shape-type"/>
		</xs:complexContent>
	</xs:complexType>

	<xs:element name="tree" type="tree-type" substitutionGroup="fgshape"/>
	<xs:complexType name="tree-type">
		<xs:complexContent>
			<xs:extension base="fgshape-type">
				<xs:attribute name="height" type="xs:int" use="optional"/>
			</xs:extension>
		</xs:complexContent>
	</xs:complexType>

</xs:schema>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<painting xmlns="http://prutser.cx/schemas/painting";
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance";>

	<drawBackground>
		<cloud color="white" cloudtype="cumulunimbus"/>
	</drawBackground>
	<drawForeground>
		<tree color="green" height="22"/>
	</drawForeground>
	<eraseShapes>
		<cloud color="white" cloudtype="cumulunimbus"/>
	</eraseShapes>
</painting>

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