Entropy as a Measure of Quality of
XML Schema Document

Dilek Basci1 and Sanjay Misra2
 1BILGI Geographic Information Conversion & Management System, LTD, Turkey
2Department of Computer Engineering, Atilim University, Turkey

Abstract: In this paper, a metric for the assessment of the structural complexity of eXtensible Markup Language schema document is formulated. The present metric ‘Schema Entropy is based on entropy concept and  intended to measure the complexity of the schema documents written in W3C XML Schema Language due to diversity in the structures of its elements. The SE is useful in evaluating the efficiency of the design of Schemas. A good design reduces the maintainability efforts. Therefore, our metric provides valuable information about the reliability and maintainability of systems. In this respect, this metric is believed to be a valuable contribution for improving the quality of XML-based systems. It is demonstrated with examples and validated empirically through actual test cases.

Keywords: XML Schema documents, W3C XML schema language, complexity metric, entropy, maintainability, and validation.