Altova SchemaAgent 2025

XML schemas provide three main methods of modularizing your schemas: Imports, Includes, and Redefines, which we collectively call IIRs for short. Each of these methods has specific namespace requirements, which are automatically checked by SchemaAgent when you create IIRs in SchemaAgent Client.

IIRs are used as follows:

•Includes are used to incorporate schema components that belong to the same target namespace or that do not have a target namespace. In the SchemaAgent default color scheme, Includes appear as green lines.

•Imports are used when combining schema components that belong to different namespaces. Using Import defines the schema location, as well as the namespace for the schema. This allows the document instance to contain both namespaces. In the SchemaAgent default color scheme, Imports appear as blue lines.

•Redefines are used to combine and modify schema components of the same target namespace or that do not have a target namespace. Using Redefines allows you to incorporate external schema definitions and declarations, such as complex types, and change them in the redefining schema. In the SchemaAgent default color scheme, Redefines appear as purple-violet lines.

In SchemaAgent's Design window, you can easily create or modify IIR relationships between schemas using drag-and-drop. Please note that you cannot create a new schema file from scratch in SchemaAgent; you can, however, add a new file in the Explorer window and then use the context menu to edit the schema in XMLSpy.