XML data constraint and xincaml

Abstract

XML is becoming the de facto standard for data exchange. Because it brings structures and semantics to the contents, it is very important for applications to verify the validity of XML data before further processing. W3C XML Schema language can specify many of the constraints in XML data, but it lacks of the capability of expressing application specific inter-node constraints. Therefore XincaML (eXtensible inter-node constraint Markup Language) is invented as a complement to XML Schema language to specify this kind of application constraints. XincaML is a descriptive inter-node constraint specification language. XincaML Processor is a reference Java implementation of the XincaML language parser and constraints checker. Developers can easily integrate the processor into their applications to handle inter-node constraints besides validating XML data against XML Schema. XincaML and the processor provide a common mechanism for applications to describe and process inter-node constraints, thus significantly eliminate the need and labor to hard-code the constraint handling in applications and speeds up the application development.