How to convert xsd to human readable documentation? [closed]

Answer 1

xs3p might do what you want (see also their SourceForce page).

Answer 2

Insert this at the top of the XSD

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="xs3p.xsl"?>

Then you can directly view the XSD file using a web-browser. The web browser does the conversion to HTML using the specified XSLT.

You don't need an XSL processor, but stylesheets like xs3p won't generate links using this approach. I use the Firefox web-browser, IE8 seems useless for this.

I've tried these xsl stylesheets: https://sourceforge.net/projects/xs3p/files/xs3p-1.1.3.zip/download http://crism.maden.org/consulting/pub/xsl/xsd2html.xsl

I think I prefer xs3p.

Answer 3

An XSLT script can do the job.

Answer 4

oXygen has very nice XSD schema documentation tool that allows for easy customization through options and additional CSS files.

I haven't used it before, but FlexDoc/XML is an XML documentation tool with an XSD documentation component called XSDDoc that looks interesting.

Of course, as pointed out in on of the other answers, XSD is just an XML file so a custom XSLT could be written to generate any documentation output you like.

Answer 5

I have generated documentation in the past using a tool I found on Freshmeat.net called xsddoc. Looking it up just now (to get the direct link), I see that it has been superceded by its developers with a tool called xnsdoc. The newer one is free for use by open-source projects, but if you are using this for a commercial product you may have to license it. If the last version released under the "xsddoc" banner suits your purposes, then you can just use that one.

The documentation it produces has the look and feel of Javadoc, and allows for some degree of control in the stylesheet, etc.

Answer 6

If you are ready to delve into the intricacies of Sandcastle, I highly recommend XML Schema Documenter which is a plugin for the excellent Sandcastle Help File Builder.

Possible outputs are the same as Sandcastle: a website, a HTML Help (CHM) file, MS Help 2 content, MS Help Viewer 1...