What is best method to validate when schemaLocation is not provided?

Question

Hi,
We have been receiving XML documents with the following root element:
<tns:EASImport xmlns:tns="http://www.xyz.com/asg/EASInsertionImport/"
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.xyz.com/asg/EASInsertionImport/ EASInsertionImport.xsd">
The EASInsertionImport schema is registered in the Oracle database. The XML document is stored in a staging table and the following pl/sql code successfully validates the file:
<plsql>
SELECT XMLTYPE (xml_data)
INTO l_xml
FROM pr_interactive_import
WHERE interactive_import_id = pInImportId;
l_xml.schemavalidate ();
</plsql>
Now we are receiving XML files from another source that are not including the schemaLocation attribute. So the above validation check fails. So my question is, what methods do others use to validate XML documents when the schemaLocation is not present?
My initial thoughts were that I could parse the root element and determine which schema to use by looking at the xmlns:tns attribute and then set the schema appropriately within my pl/sql logic and then validate. Fairly soon, we also need to support different versions of these xml documents so we will have multiple schemas registered in the database. Are there any other options than parsing the root element for the schema? Seems that there should be some setting for Oracle to figure this out automatically as the schemaLocation is an optional attribute.
Any help with this is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Alan

Answer 1

Hi Marco,
I've updated xdbconfig as explained in that document, but it doesn't appear to have had any affect.
DECLARE
v_cfg XMLType;
BEGIN
select insertChildXML
DBMS_XDB.cfg_get(),
'/xdbconfig/sysconfig',
'schemaLocation-mappings',
XMLType('<schemaLocation-mappings xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/xdb/xdbconfig.xsd"><schemaLocation-mapping>
<namespace>http://www.harris.com/asg/EASInsertionImport/</namespace>
<element>tns:EASImport</element>
<schemaURL>EASInsertionImport.xsd</schemaURL></schemaLocation-mapping></schemaLocation-mappings>'),
'xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/xdb/xdbconfig.xsd"'
into v_cfg
from dual;
DBMS_XDB.cfg_update(v_cfg);
COMMIT;
END;
But the pl/sql call:
PROCEDURE validate_xml (pInImportId INTEGER)
IS
l_xml XMLTYPE;
BEGIN
SELECT XMLTYPE (xml_data)
INTO l_xml
FROM pr_interactive_import
WHERE interactive_import_id = pInImportId;
l_xml.schemavalidate();
END validate_xml;
Still produces Oracle error: ORA-19030: Method invalid for non-schema based XML Documents. ORA-06512: at "SYS.XMLTYPE", line 345
Again, here is the root element for my xml document:
<tns:EASImport xmlns:tns="http://www.harris.com/asg/EASInsertionImport/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
Given that this root element contains a namespace, I also tried specifying a value of "tns:EASImport" instead of "EASImport" in the "<element>" element of the xdbconfig file. As far as I can tell, the values for the namespace and schemaURL elements are correct. The schemaURL element does match the schema_url column value in dba_xml_schemas.
Do you see any other configuration issues that I may have missed?