XSD attribute NILLABLE not working

Question

I am working on getting an xml file to validate against an XSD schema and I'm having trouble with the validations. Every time I validate I get errors saying

"Schemas validity error: Element '{http://services.website.com/ProgramResponse}Population': '' is not a valid value of the atomic type 'xs:double'."

I believe this error happens because I have a null character in that field, displayed like this:
< HarvPop>< /HarvPop>

So, to solve this I tried using the nillable="true" attribute for the elements so they will be able to be null, but still show up as empty. This seems to be the only solution, but it is not working at all. I still get the errors.

I am currently using XMLMate for my validations and I have double checked it agains several online verifiers as well. The error still persists. Any suggestions would be great.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<xsd:element name="Reports" type="tns:ReportsType"/>

<xsd:complexType name="ReportsType">
    <xsd:sequence>
        <xsd:element name="Report" type="tns:ReportType" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0"/>
    </xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>

<xsd:complexType name="ReportType">
    <xsd:sequence>
        <xsd:element name="Id" nillable="true"/>
        <xsd:element name="Brand" type="xsd:string"/>
        <xsd:element name="Address" type="xsd:string"/>
        <xsd:element name="City" type="xsd:string"/>
        <xsd:element name="State" type="xsd:string"/>
        <xsd:element name="ZipCode" type="xsd:string"/>
        <xsd:element name="Entry" type="tns:EntryType" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="1"/>
    </xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>

<xsd:complexType name="EntryType">
    <xsd:sequence>
        <xsd:element name="RM" nillable="true" type="xsd:double"/>
        <xsd:element name="Pop" nillable="true" type="xsd:double"/>
        <xsd:element name="Wt" nillable="true" type="xsd:double"/>
        <xsd:element name="EntryId" type="xsd:int"/>
    </xsd:sequence>
</xsd:complexType>

Answer 1

A node like < HarvPop>< /HarvPop> is stating that the value is there and that it's value is an empty string.

Based on the information on this w3.org page: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-0/#Nils

The nillable attribute is used like this:

Definition: <xsd:element name="shipDate" type="xsd:date" nillable="true"/>

Usage: <shipDate xsi:nil="true"></shipDate>

ie You have to specifically state that the value is null.

The other way to do it is to state minoccurs = 0, to allow the value to be missing.

Answer 2

One way that I found that also fixes the problem with minimal code was to add the default="0" attribute to the XSD. This allows you to validate as a double without having to deal with nil by making nil default to a number.

Error deserialising XML document with strongly typed XSD