XML Schema

Name

xs:duration — Time durations.

Derived from:

xs:anySimpleType

Primary:

xs:duration

Known subtypes:

none

Facets:

xs:enumeration, xs:maxExclusive, xs:maxInclusive, xs:minExclusive, xs:minInclusive, xs:pattern, xs:whiteSpace

<xs:simpleType name="duration" id="duration">
  <xs:restriction base="xs:anySimpleType">
    <xs:whiteSpace value="collapse" fixed="true"/>
  </xs:restriction>
</xs:simpleType>

Description

Durations may be expressed using all the parts of a datetime (from year to fractions of second) and are, therefore, defined as a “six-dimensional space.” Note that because the relation between some of these date parts (such as the number of days in a month) is not fixed, the order relationship between durations is only partial and the result of a comparison between two durations may be undetermined.

The lexical space of xs:duration is the format defined by ISO 8601 under the form “PnYnMnDTnHnMnS,” in which the capital letters are delimiters and can be omitted when the corresponding member is not used.

Although some durations are undetermined, this is fixed as soon as a starting point is fixed for the duration. W3C XML Schema relies on this feature to define the algorithm to use to compare two durations. Four datetimes have been chosen, which produce the greatest deviations when durations are added. A duration will be considered bigger than another when the result of its addition to these four dates is consistently bigger than the result of the addition of the other duration to these same ...