For work, I'm generating WSDL payloads from third-party schemas for testing purposes.
Occasionally, the schema contains an element that references the XSD schema element itself, like below:
<s:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="FindCustomerByRuleEx_CIIResult">
<s:complexType>
<s:sequence>
<s:element ref="xs:schema"/> <!-- huh? -->
<s:any/>
</s:sequence>
</s:complexType>
</s:element>
It is not an isolated instance. I've seen it in at least three WSDLs from different vendors.
The generator I use has no issues with this. It does create an element of type {}schema inside the payload. The payload, though, becomes unnecessarily bigger, not to mention that it makes little sense.
What I'm trying to figure out is this:
What the designers of the schema MEANT by this declaration?
Why would a payload include an xs: schema element? Maybe they meant "any XSD type"? Maybe it is some obscure early-days-of-WSDL convention that I'm not aware of? Maybe it is a known bug in an XML authoring tool (which one)?
Does anyone have any insight into this?
Thank you!