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javaxmldomxml-parsingsax

Does the xml "xinclude"d in another XML need to be fully valid?

I am trying to break up a massive XML into smaller more maintainable files by grouping relevant bits into a smaller XML. For example, here is my message with 100s of "message" elements. 

<messages>
 <message>...</message>
 <message>...</message>
 <message>...</message>
 <message>...</message>
 <message>...</message>
 ...
</messages>

So my plan was to do something like - 

<messages>
 <xi:include href="first_10_messages.xml" />
 <xi:include href="next_10.xml" />
 <xi:include href="another_10.xml" />
 ...
 <!-- other messages as is below -->
 <message>...</message>
 <message>...</message>
 ...
</messages>

The XMLs in the xi:include, are not valid XML as they dont have a root element. Is this possible?

When I apply schema validation on this I get the following error - "the markup in the document following the root element must be well-formed".

As a test, if I have a single <message> in the included file, it works fine as its valid XML.

I am parsing/validating the xml in Java using the DocumentBuilder api.

Solution

  • Yes, the target of the XInclude needs to be a well-formed XML document in its own right.