"normalizedString" Datatype Values and Representations

XSD Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟"normalizedString" Datatype Values and Representations

This section describes the first derived datatype of 'string': 'normalizedString'. Whitespace characters are replaced in 'normalizedString' lexical representations with ' ' characters to obtain their values.

Based on what we have learned on "string" datatype in the previous section, let's now look at its first derived datatype: normalizedString.

"normalizedString" is a datatype derived from "string" datatype by normalizing whitespace characters to space characters.

"normalizedString" value set is smaller than "string" value set. It contains only unique "string" values after whitespace characters: '\t', '\r' and '\n', are normalized (replaced) by the space character: ' '.

Note that '\t', '\r' and '\n' are still allowed in "normalizedString" lexical representations. But they are replaced by ' ' to obtain "normalizedString" values. For example, 3 XML elements below are all valid and represent the same "normalizedString" value:

  <NormalizedString>Herong  Yang</NormalizedString>
  <NormalizedString>Herong&#x0D;&#x0A;Yang</NormalizedString>
  <NormalizedString>Herong
Yang</NormalizedString>

I don't see any usage examples of "normalizedString" values in HTML documents.

Here is a sample XSD document that defines a sub element <NormalizedString> to use "normalizedString" values:

<?xml version="1.1"?>
<!-- normalizedString_datatype_test.xsd
 - Copyright (c) 2002-2013 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
-->
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<xs:element name="NormalizedString_Datatype_Test">
  <xs:complexType>
    <xs:sequence>
      <xs:element name="NormalizedString" type="xs:normalizedString"
        maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
    </xs:sequence>
  </xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:schema>

Here is a sample XML document that contains <NormalizedString> elements conforming with that definition:

<?xml version="1.1"?>
<!-- normalizedString_datatype_test.xml
 - Copyright (c) 2002-2013 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
-->
<NormalizedString_Datatype_Test>

<!-- 3 valid "normalizedString" elements represent the same value
     Assuming \r\n is the line break -->
  <NormalizedString>Herong  Yang</NormalizedString>
  <NormalizedString>Herong&#x0D;&#x0A;Yang</NormalizedString>
  <NormalizedString>Herong
Yang</NormalizedString>

<!-- 3 valid "normalizedString" elements represent different
     values -->
  <NormalizedString>Herong  Yang</NormalizedString>
  <NormalizedString>Herong Yang</NormalizedString>
  <NormalizedString> Herong Yang</NormalizedString>
</NormalizedString_Datatype_Test>