I would have said there were two approaches:

(a) continue to work without namespaces. You haven't actually said why you
want to introduce a namespace, and you can use XML Schema without one.

(b) introduce a couple of simple XSLT stylesheets to do the conversion from
the non-namespace form to the namespace form and perhaps vice versa. Run the
transformation on the input before you apply schema validation.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Steidl (IPTC) [mailto:mdirector@i...] 
> Sent: 05 June 2007 15:50
> To: xml-dev@l...
> Subject: [xml-dev] Transition from DTD to XML Schema specification
> 
> Hello Group:
> 
> More than 5 years ago my organisation, the IPTC 
> (www.iptc.org), has created first XML document specifications 
> based on DTDs for the purpose of 
> 
> exchanging news in a B2B environment. Now we want move the 
> document definitions to XML Schemas (to be precise: the "new" 
> XML Schema replicates 
> 
> the "old" DTD), and this drives us into a bad situation:
> 
> - for the XML Schema we define a default namespace.
> 
> - adopters of our document specification set up an XML 
> database and load the XML Schema for structure validation.
> 
> - then they receive XML documents which are still based on 
> the DTD and hence without a namespace.
> 
> - the XML DB rejects these XML instances as invalid - and 
> actually this is 
> 
>  right.
> 
> What are best practices for such a sliding transition from 
> DTD to XML Schema validated documents and are there 
> workarounds to allow the import of both non-namespaced and 
> namespaced XML instances. Our document specifications are 
> used worldwide and there is no way of defining a "day X" from 
> that on DTD based instances are abondoned and only XML Schema 
> based instances are allowed.
> 
> Thanks 
> 
> Michael
> ==================================================
> Sent by:
> Michael Steidl
> Managing Director of the IPTC <mdirector@i...> 
> International Press Telecommunications Council "Information 
> Technology for News"
> Visit us on the web at  http://www.iptc.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________
> _________
> 
> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by 
> OASIS to support XML implementation and development. To 
> minimize spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
> 
> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@l...
> subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@l... List archive: 
> http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
>