Using Jing for Relax NG validation

I just ant to jot down how to programmatically use Jing for Relax NG validation. It has a simple API but I could not find any description besides the JavaDoc. It took me some time to figure out how to use it.

If you want to validate a XML file, just use ValidationDriver. If you have a DOM Document or StAX source, just do the following

//we are using Relax NG compact format
SchemaReader schemaReader = CompactSchemaReader.getInstance();

//schema can be reused, it's thread safe
Schema schema = schemaReader.createSchema(ValidationDriver.fileInputSource(new File("your_schema.txt)), PropertyMap.EMPTY);

//can use different error handler here (try DraconianErrorHandler http://www.thaiopensource.com/relaxng/api/jing/com/thaiopensource/xml/sax/DraconianErrorHandler.html)
ErrorHandler seh = new ErrorHandlerImpl();
PropertyMapBuilder  builder = new PropertyMapBuilder();
builder.put(ValidateProperty.ERROR_HANDLER, seh);
		
//Validator is NOT thread safe
Validator validator = schema.createValidator(builder.toPropertyMap());
			
		
Source source = ...//your XML source

TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer().transform(source, new SAXResult(validator.getContentHandler()));

And that’s it.

3 thoughts on “Using Jing for Relax NG validation”

  1. Fred

    Here’s some XML:

    1234567890
    abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

    Here’s a Relax NG compact schema:

    default namespace = “http://api.host.example”
    namespace soap = “http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”
    namespace ns = “http://host.example”

    start =
    element soap:Envelope {
    element soap:Body {
    element ns:someMethod {
    element ns:in {
    element foo { xsd:integer },
    element bar { xsd:string { pattern=”moo” } }
    }
    }
    }
    }

    With example code on this blog I get 4 errors:

    3:6: error: found attribute “xmlns:soap”, but no attributes allowed here
    6:14: error: found attribute “xmlns”, but no attributes allowed here
    6:14: error: found attribute “xmlns:ns”, but no attributes allowed here
    8:54: error: character content of element “bar” invalid; must be a string matching the regular expression “moo”

    I can understand the last error but not the first 3. It looks like the namespaces are getting confused. Can you help?

  2. Fred

    Here’s some XML:

    <?xml version=”1.0″ ?>
    <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”>
    <soap:Body>
    <ns:someMethod xmlns=”http://api.host.example”
    xmlns:ns=”http://host.example”>
    <ns:in>
    <foo>1234567890</foo>
    <bar>abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz</bar>
    </ns:in>
    </ns:someMethod>
    </soap:Body>
    </soap:Envelope>

    Here’s a Relax NG compact schema:

    default namespace = “http://api.host.example”
    namespace soap = “http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”
    namespace ns = “http://host.example”

    start =
    element soap:Envelope {
    element soap:Body {
    element ns:someMethod {
    element ns:in {
    element foo { xsd:integer },
    element bar { xsd:string { pattern=”moo” } }
    }
    }
    }
    }

    With example code on this blog I get 4 errors:

    3:6: error: found attribute “xmlns:soap”, but no attributes allowed here
    6:14: error: found attribute “xmlns”, but no attributes allowed here
    6:14: error: found attribute “xmlns:ns”, but no attributes allowed here
    8:54: error: character content of element “bar” invalid; must be a string matching the regular expression “moo”

    I can understand the last error but not the first 3. It looks like the namespaces are getting confused. Can you help?

  3. Lukáš Křečan

    Sorry, I am not RelaxNG expert so I am afraid I will not be able to help you.

Comments are closed.