When Grammars do not Suffice: Data and Content Integrity Constraints Verification in XML through a Conceptual Model

Complex applications can benefit greatly from using conceptual models and Model Driven Architecture during development, deployment and runtime. XML applications are not different. In this paper, we examine the possibility of using Object Constraint Language (OCL) for expressing constraints over a conceptual model for XML data. We go through the different classes of OCL expression and show how each class can be translated into XPath constructs. Subsequently we show how the constraints can be checked using Schematron. We introduce a function library OclX, which provides constructs necessary to translate those OCL constructs that have no counterpart in XPath. With our tool, it is possible to check validity of OCL constraints in XML data.