Information technology — Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL) — Part 3: Rule-based validation using Schematron

This document specifies Schematron, a schema language for XML. This document establishes requirements for Schematron schemas and specifies when an XML document matches the patterns specified by a Schematron schema. Schematron uses query languages such as XPath for writing assertions.

Technologies de l'information — Langages de définition de schéma de documents (DSDL) — Partie 3: Validation basée sur des règles à l'aide de Schematron

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INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 19757-3
Third edition
2020-06
Information technology — Document
Schema Definition Languages
(DSDL) —
Part 3:
Rule-based validation using
Schematron
Technologies de l'information — Langages de définition de schéma de
documents (DSDL) —
Partie 3: Validation basée sur des règles à l'aide de Schematron
Reference number
ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2020

---------------------- Page: 1 ----------------------
ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

COPYRIGHT PROTECTED DOCUMENT
© ISO/IEC 2020
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting
on the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address
below or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Fax: +41 22 749 09 47
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

---------------------- Page: 2 ----------------------
ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

Contents Page
Foreword .v
Introduction .vi
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Notation . 4
5 Syntax . 4
5.1 Well-formedness. 4
5.2 Namespace. 4
5.3 Whitespace . 4
5.4 Core elements . 4
5.4.1 General. 4
5.4.2 active element . 4
5.4.3 assert element . 4
5.4.4 extends element . 5
5.4.5 include element . 5
5.4.6 let element . 5
5.4.7 name element. 5
5.4.8 ns element . 6
5.4.9 param element . 6
5.4.10 pattern element . 6
5.4.11 phase element . 6
5.4.12 report element . 6
5.4.13 rule element. 7
5.4.14 schema element . 7
5.4.15 value-of element . 7
5.5 Ancillary elements and attributes . 8
5.5.1 diagnostic element . 8
5.5.2 diagnostics element . 8
5.5.3 dir element . 8
5.5.4 emph element. 8
5.5.5 flag attribute . 8
5.5.6 fpi attribute . 8
5.5.7 icon attribute . 8
5.5.8 p element . 8
5.5.9 properties element . 8
5.5.10 property element . 8
5.5.11 role attribute . 9
5.5.12 see attribute . 9
5.5.13 span element. 9
5.5.14 subject attribute . 9
5.5.15 title element . 9
6 Semantics . 9
6.1 Validation function . 9
6.2 Minimal syntax (informative) .10
6.3 Abstract pattern processing .11
6.4 Query language binding .12
6.5 Order and side-effects .13
7 Conformance .13
7.1 Simple conformance .13
7.2 Full conformance.14
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved iii

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ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

Annex A (normative) RELAX NG schema for Schematron .15
Annex B (normative) Schematron schema for additional constraints .19
Annex C (normative) Default query language binding .20
Annex D (informative) Schematron Validation Report Language .21
Annex E (informative) Design requirements .26
Annex F (informative) Use of Schematron as a vocabulary .27
Annex G (informative) Use of Schematron for multi-lingual schemas .28
Annex H (normative) Query language binding for XSLT2 .29
Annex I (normative) Query language binding for XPath2 .31
Annex J (normative) Query language binding for XSLT3 .32
Annex K (normative) Query language binding for XPath3 .34
Annex L (informative) Query language binding for EXSLT.35
Annex M (informative) Query language binding for STX .36
Annex N (informative) Example usage of Schematron properties .37
Bibliography .39
iv © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

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ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that
are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through
technical committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of
technical activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other
international organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also
take part in the work.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for
the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www .iso .org/ directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject
of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent
rights. Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the
Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www .iso .org/ patents) or the IEC
list of patent declarations received (see http:// patents .iec .ch).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the
World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www .iso .org/
iso/ foreword .html.
This document was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 34, Document description and processing languages.
This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition (ISO/IEC 19757-3:2016), which has been
technically revised.
The main changes compared to the previous edition are as follows:
— query language bindings have been added for XSLT 3.0 (Annex J) and XPath 3.0 (Annex K);
— annexes pertaining to XPath and XSLT query language bindings (Annexes H to K) are now all
normative, while those for EXSLT (Annex L) and STX (Annex M) remain informative.
A list of all parts in the ISO/IEC 19757 series can be found on the ISO website.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www .iso .org/ members .html.
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved v

---------------------- Page: 5 ----------------------
ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

Introduction
ISO/IEC 19757 (all parts) defines a set of Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL) that can
be used to specify one or more validation processes performed against Extensible Markup Language
(XML) or Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) documents. [XML is an application profile
SGML (see ISO 8879).]
A document model is an expression of the constraints to be placed on the structure and content of
documents to be validated with the model. A number of technologies have been developed through
various formal and informal consortia since the development of Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
as part of ISO 8879, notably by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). A number of validation technologies are
standardized in DSDL to complement those already available as standards or from the industry.
Through the validation that a structured document conforms to specified constraints in structure and
content, the potentially many applications acting on the document are relieved from duplicating the
task of confirming that such requirements have been met. Historically, such tasks and expressions have
been developed and utilized in isolation, without consideration of how the features and functionality
available in other technologies can enhance validation objectives.
The main objective of ISO/IEC 19757 (all parts) is to bring together different validation-related tasks
and expressions to form a single extensible framework that allows technologies to work in series or
in parallel to produce a single or a set of validation results. The extensibility of DSDL accommodates
validation technologies not yet designed or specified.
In the past, different design and use criteria have led users to choose different validation technologies
for different portions of their information. Bringing together information within a single XML
document sometimes prevents existing document models from being used to validate sections of data.
By providing an integrated suite of constraint description languages that can be applied to different
subsets of a single XML document, ISO/IEC 19757 (all parts) allows different validation technologies to
be integrated under a well-defined validation policy.
The structure of this document is as follows. Clause 5 describes the syntax of an ISO Schematron
schema. Clause 6 describes the semantics of a correct ISO Schematron schema; the semantics specify
when a document is valid with respect to an ISO Schematron schema. Clause 7 describes conformance
requirements for implementations of ISO Schematron validators. Annex A provides the ISO/IEC 19757-2
(RELAX NG) schema for ISO Schematron. Annex B provides the ISO Schematron schema for constraints
in ISO Schematron that cannot be expressed by the schema of Annex A. Annex C provides the default
query language binding to XSLT1. Annex D provides an ISO/IEC 19757-2 (RELAX NG compact syntax)
schema and corresponding ISO Schematron schema for a simple XML language Schematron Validation
Report Language. Annex E provides motivating design requirements for ISO Schematron. Annex F
specifies certain Schematron elements to be used in external vocabularies. Annex G provides a simple
example of a multi-lingual schema. Annexes H to M provide query language bindings. Annex N shows
example usage of Schematron properties.
This edition is backwards compatible with ISO/IEC 19757-3:2016, supersedes it and provides extra
query language bindings, in particular for XSLT3.
Considered as a document type, a Schematron schema contains natural-language assertions concerning
a set of documents, marked up with various elements and attributes for testing these natural-language
assertions and for simplifying and grouping assertions.
Considered theoretically, a Schematron schema reduces to a non-chaining rule system whose terms
are Boolean functions invoking an external query language on the instance and other visible XML
documents, with syntactic features to reduce specification size and to allow efficient implementation.
Considered analytically, Schematron has two characteristic high-level abstractions: the pattern and the
phase. These allow the representation of non-regular, non-sequential constraints that ISO/IEC 19757-2
cannot specify and various dynamic or contingent constraints.
vi © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

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ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

[2] [4]
This document is based on the Schematron assertion language. The let element is based on XCSL .
Other features arise from the half-dozen early open-source implementations of Schematron in
diverse programming languages and from discussions in electronic forums by Schematron users and
implementers.
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved vii

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INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)
Information technology — Document Schema Definition
Languages (DSDL) —
Part 3:
Rule-based validation using Schematron
1 Scope
This document specifies Schematron, a schema language for XML. This document establishes
requirements for Schematron schemas and specifies when an XML document matches the patterns
specified by a Schematron schema. Schematron uses query languages such as XPath for writing
assertions.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
1)
XPath , XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0, W3C Recommendation, 16 November 1999
2)
XPath2 , XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0, W3C Recommendation, 23 January 2007
3)
XPath3 , XML Path Language (XPath) 3.0, W3C Recommendation, 8 April 2014
4)
XPath2 Functions , XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators, W3C Recommendation, 23
January 2007
5)
XPath3 Functions , XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.0, W3C Recommendation, 8 April 2014
6)
XSLT1 , XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0, W3C Recommendation, 16 November 1999
7)
XSLT2 , XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0, W3C Recommendation, 23 January 2007
8)
XSLT3 , XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 3.0, W3C Recommendation, 8 June 2017
ISO/IEC 19757-2, Information technology — Document Schema Definition Language (DSDL) — Part 2:
Regular-grammar-based validation — RELAX NG
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
1) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath.
2) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath20/ .
3) Available at https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath -30/ .
4) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath -functions/ .
5) Available at https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath -functions -30/ .
6) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xslt.
7) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xslt20/ .
8) Available at .https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xslt -30/ .
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved 1

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ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at http:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
abstract pattern
pattern (3.13) in a rule (3.18) that has been parameterized to enable reuse
3.2
abstract rule
collection of assertions (3.5) which can be included in other rules (3.18) but which does not fire itself
3.3
active pattern
pattern (3.13) belonging to the active phase (3.4)
3.4
active phase
phase (3.14) whose patterns (3.13) are used for validation
3.5
assertion
natural-language statement with associated assertion test (3.6) and ancillary attributes
3.6
assertion test
Boolean query
Note 1 to entry: An assertion test "succeeds" or "fails".
3.7
Schematron schema
document that satisfies all the requirements of this document
3.8
diagnostic
named natural language statements providing information to end-users of validators concerning the
expected and actual values together with repair hints
3.9
elaborated rule-context expression
single rule-context expression (3.20) which explicitly disallows items selected by lexically previous rule
contexts (3.19) in the same pattern (3.13)
3.10
implementation
implementation of a Schematron validator
3.11
name
mixture of name characters with a restricted set of initial characters
Note 1 to entry: See Production 5 of XML1.
3.12
natural-language assertion
natural-language statement expressing some part of a pattern (3.13)
Note 1 to entry: A natural-language assertion is "met" or "unmet".
2 © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

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ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

3.13
pattern
unordered collection of rules (3.18) with an optional identifier and ancillary information
3.14
phase
named, unordered collection of patterns (3.13)
Note 1 to entry: Patterns may belong to more than one phase.
Note 2 to entry: Two strings, #ALL and #DEFAULT, are reserved with particular meanings.
3.15
progressive validation
validation of constraints in stages determined or grouped to some extent by the schema author rather
than, for example, entirely determined by the document order
3.16
property
named data giving additional metadata on an assertion (3.5) or report
3.17
query language binding
named set, specified in a document called a Query Language Binding, of the languages and conventions
used for assertion tests (3.6), rule-context expressions (3.20) and so on, by a particular Schematron
implementation (3.10)
3.18
rule
unordered collection of assertions (3.5) with a rule-context expression (3.20) and ancillary attributes
3.19
rule context
element or other information item used for assertion tests (3.6)
Note 1 to entry: A rule is said to fire when an information item matches the rule context.
3.20
rule-context expression
query to specify subjects (3.21)
Note 1 to entry: A rule context (3.19) is said to match an information item when that information item has not
been matched by any lexically-previous rule-context expressions in the same pattern (3.13) and the information
item is one of the information items that the query would specify.
3.21
subject
particular information item which corresponds to the object of interest of the natural-language
assertions (3.12) and typically is matched by the context expression of a rule (3.18)
3.22
valid
passing all assertion tests (3.6) in fired rules (3.18) of active patterns (3.3)
3.23
variable
constant value, represented by a name (3.11), evaluated within the parent schema, phase (3.14), pattern
(3.13) or rule (3.18) and scoped within the parent schema, phase, pattern or rule
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved 3

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ISO/IEC 19757-3:2020(E)

4 Notation
This document uses XPath to identify information items, to the extent that items in the XPath data
model can be derived from those defined by XML Infoset, in Schematron schemas.
5 Syntax
5.1 Well-formedness
A Schematron schema shall be a well-formed XML document, according to the version of XML used.
5.2 Namespace
All elements shown in the grammar for Schematron are qualified with the namespace URI [IRI]:
http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron
In subsequent clauses, the prefix sch is taken as bound to the Schematron namespace URI for exposition
purposes. The prefix sch is not reserved or required by this document. Any element can also have
foreign attributes in addition to the attributes shown in the grammar. A foreign attribute is an attribute
with a name whose namespace URI is neither the empty string nor the Schematron namespace URI.
Any non-empty element may have foreign child elements in addition to the child elements shown in the
grammar. A foreign element is an element with a name whose namespace URI is not the Schematron
namespace URI. There are no constraints on the relative position of foreign child elements with respect
to other child elements.
5.3 Whitespace
Any element can also have children strings that consist entirely of whitespace characters, where
a whitespace character is one of U+0020, U+009, U+00D or U+00A. There are no constraints on the
relative position of whitespace string children with respect to child elements.
Leading and trailing whitespace should be stripped from attributes defined by this document.
Whitespace should be collapsed in elements defined by this document that allow text. Whitespace may
be stripped from elements defined by this document that do not allow text.
5.4 Core elements
5.4.1 General
A Schematron schema shall follow the grammar given in Annex A.
For information on the use of Schematron elements in external voc
...

FINAL
INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
DRAFT
STANDARD FDIS
19757-3
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34
Information technology — Document
Secretariat: JISC
Schema Definition Languages
Voting begins on:
2020-03-10 (DSDL) —
Voting terminates on:
Part 3:
2020-05-05
Rule-based validation using
Schematron
RECIPIENTS OF THIS DRAFT ARE INVITED TO
SUBMIT, WITH THEIR COMMENTS, NOTIFICATION
OF ANY RELEVANT PATENT RIGHTS OF WHICH
THEY ARE AWARE AND TO PROVIDE SUPPOR TING
DOCUMENTATION.
IN ADDITION TO THEIR EVALUATION AS
Reference number
BEING ACCEPTABLE FOR INDUSTRIAL, TECHNO-
ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)
LOGICAL, COMMERCIAL AND USER PURPOSES,
DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS MAY ON
OCCASION HAVE TO BE CONSIDERED IN THE
LIGHT OF THEIR POTENTIAL TO BECOME STAN-
DARDS TO WHICH REFERENCE MAY BE MADE IN
©
NATIONAL REGULATIONS. ISO/IEC 2020

---------------------- Page: 1 ----------------------
ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)

COPYRIGHT PROTECTED DOCUMENT
© ISO/IEC 2020
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting
on the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address
below or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Fax: +41 22 749 09 47
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

---------------------- Page: 2 ----------------------
ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)

Contents Page
Foreword .v
Introduction .vi
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Notation . 4
5 Syntax . 4
5.1 Well-formedness. 4
5.2 Namespace. 4
5.3 Whitespace . 4
5.4 Core elements . 4
5.4.1 General. 4
5.4.2 active element . 4
5.4.3 assert element . 4
5.4.4 extends element . 5
5.4.5 include element . 5
5.4.6 let element . 5
5.4.7 name element. 5
5.4.8 ns element . 6
5.4.9 param element . 6
5.4.10 pattern element . 6
5.4.11 phase element . 6
5.4.12 report element . 6
5.4.13 rule element. 7
5.4.14 schema element . 7
5.4.15 value-of element . 7
5.5 Ancillary elements and attributes . 8
5.5.1 diagnostic element . 8
5.5.2 diagnostics element . 8
5.5.3 dir element . 8
5.5.4 emph element. 8
5.5.5 flag attribute . 8
5.5.6 fpi attribute . 8
5.5.7 icon attribute . 8
5.5.8 p element . 8
5.5.9 properties element . 8
5.5.10 property element . 8
5.5.11 role attribute . 9
5.5.12 see attribute . 9
5.5.13 span element. 9
5.5.14 subject attribute . 9
5.5.15 title element . 9
6 Semantics . 9
6.1 Validation function . 9
6.2 Minimal syntax (informative) .10
6.3 Abstract pattern processing .11
6.4 Query language binding .12
6.5 Order and side-effects .13
7 Conformance .13
7.1 Simple conformance .13
7.2 Full conformance.14
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved iii

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ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)

Annex A (normative) RELAX NG schema for Schematron .15
Annex B (normative) Schematron schema for additional constraints .19
Annex C (normative) Default query language binding .20
Annex D (informative) Schematron Validation Report Language .21
Annex E (informative) Design requirements .26
Annex F (informative) Use of Schematron as a vocabulary .27
Annex G (informative) Use of Schematron for multi-lingual schemas .28
Annex H (normative) Query language binding for XSLT2 .29
Annex I (normative) Query language binding for XPath2 .31
Annex J (normative) Query language binding for XSLT3 .32
Annex K (normative) Query language binding for XPath3 .34
Annex L (informative) Query language binding for EXSLT.35
Annex M (informative) Query language binding for STX .36
Annex N (informative) Example usage of Schematron properties .37
Bibliography .39
iv © ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved

---------------------- Page: 4 ----------------------
ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical
committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.
ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of
electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www .iso .org/ directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of
any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or
on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www .iso .org/ patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the
World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see www .iso .org/
iso/ foreword .html.
This document was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 34, Document description and processing languages.
This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition (ISO/IEC 19757-3:2016), which has been
technically revised.
The main changes compared to the previous edition are as follows:
— query language bindings have been added for XSLT 3.0 (Annex J) and XPath 3.0 (Annex K);
— annexes pertaining to XPath and XSLT query language bindings (Annexes H to K) are now all
normative, while those for EXSLT (Annex L) and STX (Annex M) remain informative.
A list of all parts in the ISO/IEC 19757 series can be found on the ISO website.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www .iso .org/ members .html.
© ISO/IEC 2020 – All rights reserved v

---------------------- Page: 5 ----------------------
ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)

Introduction
ISO/IEC 19757 (all parts) defines a set of Document Schema Definition Languages (DSDL) that can
be used to specify one or more validation processes performed against Extensible Markup Language
(XML) or Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) documents. [XML is an application profile
SGML (see ISO 8879).]
A document model is an expression of the constraints to be placed on the structure and content of
documents to be validated with the model. A number of technologies have been developed through
various formal and informal consortia since the development of Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
as part of ISO 8879, notably by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). A number of validation technologies are
standardized in DSDL to complement those already available as standards or from the industry.
Through the validation that a structured document conforms to specified constraints in structure and
content, the potentially many applications acting on the document are relieved from duplicating the
task of confirming that such requirements have been met. Historically, such tasks and expressions have
been developed and utilized in isolation, without consideration of how the features and functionality
available in other technologies can enhance validation objectives.
The main objective of ISO/IEC 19757 (all parts) is to bring together different validation-related tasks
and expressions to form a single extensible framework that allows technologies to work in series or
in parallel to produce a single or a set of validation results. The extensibility of DSDL accommodates
validation technologies not yet designed or specified.
In the past, different design and use criteria have led users to choose different validation technologies
for different portions of their information. Bringing together information within a single XML
document sometimes prevents existing document models from being used to validate sections of data.
By providing an integrated suite of constraint description languages that can be applied to different
subsets of a single XML document, ISO/IEC 19757 (all parts) allows different validation technologies to
be integrated under a well-defined validation policy.
The structure of this document is as follows. Clause 5 describes the syntax of an ISO Schematron
schema. Clause 6 describes the semantics of a correct ISO Schematron schema; the semantics specify
when a document is valid with respect to an ISO Schematron schema. Clause 7 describes conformance
requirements for implementations of ISO Schematron validators. Annex A provides the ISO/IEC 19757-2
(RELAX NG) schema for ISO Schematron. Annex B provides the ISO Schematron schema for constraints
in ISO Schematron that cannot be expressed by the schema of Annex A. Annex C provides the default
query language binding to XSLT1. Annex D provides an ISO/IEC 19757-2 (RELAX NG compact syntax)
schema and corresponding ISO Schematron schema for a simple XML language Schematron Validation
Report Language. Annex E provides motivating design requirements for ISO Schematron. Annex F
specifies certain Schematron elements to be used in external vocabularies. Annex G provides a simple
example of a multi-lingual schema. Annexes H to M provide query language bindings. Annex N shows
example usage of Schematron properties.
This edition is backwards compatible with ISO/IEC 19757-3:2016, supersedes it and provides extra
query language bindings, in particular for XSLT3.
Considered as a document type, a Schematron schema contains natural-language assertions concerning
a set of documents, marked up with various elements and attributes for testing these natural-language
assertions and for simplifying and grouping assertions.
Considered theoretically, a Schematron schema reduces to a non-chaining rule system whose terms
are Boolean functions invoking an external query language on the instance and other visible XML
documents, with syntactic features to reduce specification size and to allow efficient implementation.
Considered analytically, Schematron has two characteristic high-level abstractions: the pattern and the
phase. These allow the representation of non-regular, non-sequential constraints that ISO/IEC 19757-2
cannot specify and various dynamic or contingent constraints.
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[2] [4]
This document is based on the Schematron assertion language. The let element is based on XCSL .
Other features arise from the half-dozen early open-source implementations of Schematron in
diverse programming languages and from discussions in electronic forums by Schematron users and
implementers.
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FINAL DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)
Information technology — Document Schema Definition
Languages (DSDL) —
Part 3:
Rule-based validation using Schematron
1 Scope
This document specifies Schematron, a schema language for XML. This document establishes
requirements for Schematron schemas and specifies when an XML document matches the patterns
specified by a Schematron schema. Schematron uses query languages such as XPath for writing
assertions.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
1)
XPath , XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0, W3C Recommendation, 16 November 1999
2)
XPath2 , XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0, W3C Recommendation, 23 January 2007
3)
XPath3 , XML Path Language (XPath) 3.0, W3C Recommendation, 8 April 2014
4)
XPath2 Functions , XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators, W3C Recommendation, 23
January 2007
5)
XPath3 Functions , XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.0, W3C Recommendation, 8 April 2014
6)
XSLT1 , XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0, W3C Recommendation, 16 November 1999
7)
XSLT2 , XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0, W3C Recommendation, 23 January 2007
8)
XSLT3 , XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 3.0, W3C Recommendation, 8 June 2017
ISO/IEC 19757-2, Information technology — Document Schema Definition Language (DSDL) — Part 2:
Regular-grammar-based validation — RELAX NG
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
1) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath.
2) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath20/ .
3) Available at https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath -30/ .
4) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath -functions/ .
5) Available at https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xpath -functions -30/ .
6) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xslt.
7) Available at http:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xslt20/ .
8) Available at .https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ xslt -30/ .
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ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)

ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at http:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
abstract pattern
pattern (3.13) in a rule (3.18) that has been parameterized to enable reuse
3.2
abstract rule
collection of assertions (3.5) which can be included in other rules (3.18) but which does not fire itself
3.3
active pattern
pattern (3.13) belonging to the active phase (3.4)
3.4
active phase
phase (3.14) whose patterns (3.13) are used for validation
3.5
assertion
natural-language statement with associated assertion test (3.6) and ancillary attributes
3.6
assertion test
Boolean query
Note 1 to entry: An assertion test "succeeds" or "fails".
3.7
Schematron schema
document that satisfies all the requirements of this document
3.8
diagnostic
named natural language statements providing information to end-users of validators concerning the
expected and actual values together with repair hints
3.9
elaborated rule-context expression
single rule-context expression (3.20) which explicitly disallows items selected by lexically previous rule
contexts (3.19) in the same pattern (3.13)
3.10
implementation
implementation of a Schematron validator
3.11
name
mixture of name characters with a restricted set of initial characters
Note 1 to entry: See Production 5 of XML1.
3.12
natural-language assertion
natural-language statement expressing some part of a pattern (3.13)
Note 1 to entry: A natural-language assertion is "met" or "unmet".
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ISO/IEC FDIS 19757-3:2020(E)

3.13
pattern
unordered collection of rules (3.18) with an optional identifier and ancillary information
3.14
phase
named, unordered collection of patterns (3.13)
Note 1 to entry: Patterns may belong to more than one phase.
Note 2 to entry: Two strings, #ALL and #DEFAULT, are reserved with particular meanings.
3.15
progressive validation
validation of constraints in stages determined or grouped to some extent by the schema author rather
than, for example, entirely determined by the document order
3.16
property
named data giving additional metadata on an assertion (3.5) or report
3.17
query language binding
named set, specified in a document called a Query Language Binding, of the languages and conventions
used for assertion tests (3.6), rule-context expressions (3.20) and so on, by a particular Schematron
implementation (3.10)
3.18
rule
unordered collection of assertions (3.5) with a rule-context expression (3.20) and ancillary attributes
3.19
rule context
element or other information item used for assertion tests (3.6)
Note 1 to entry: A rule is said to fire when an information item matches the rule context.
3.20
rule-context expression
query to specify subjects (3.21)
Note 1 to entry: A rule context (3.19) is said to match an information item when that information item has not
been matched by any lexically-previous rule-context expressions in the same pattern (3.13) and the information
item is one of the information items that the query would specify.
3.21
subject
particular information item which corresponds to the object of interest of the natural-language
assertions (3.12) and typically is matched by the context expression of a rule (3.18)
3.22
valid
passing all assertion tests (3.6) in fired rules (3.18) of active patterns (3.3)
3.23
variable
constant value, represented by a name (3.11), evaluated within the parent schema, phase (3.14), pattern
(3.13) or rule (3.18) and scoped within the parent schema, phase, pattern or rule
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4 Notation
This document uses XPath to identify information items, to the extent that items in the XPath data
model can be derived from those defined by XML Infoset, in Schematron schemas.
5 Syntax
5.1 Well-formedness
A Schematron schema shall be a well-formed XML document, according to the version of XML used.
5.2 Namespace
All elements shown in the grammar for Schematron are qualified with the namespace URI [IRI]:
http://purl.oclc.org/dsdl/schematron
In subsequent clauses, the prefix sch is taken as bound to the Schematron namespace URI for exposition
purposes. The prefix sch is not reserved or required by this document. Any element can also have
foreign attributes in addition to the attributes shown in the grammar. A foreign attribute is an attribute
with a name whose namespace URI is neither the empty string nor the Schematron namespace URI.
Any non-empty element may have foreign child elements in addition to the child elements shown in the
grammar. A foreign element is an element with a name whose namespace URI is not the Schematron
namespace URI. There are no constraints on the relative position of foreign child elements with respect
to other child elements.
5.3 Whitespace
Any element can also have children strings that consist entirely of whitespace characters, where
a whitespace character is one of U+0020, U+009, U+00D or U+00A. There are no constraints on the
relative position of whitespace string children with respect to child elements.
...

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