A simple element is an XML element that can contains only text. It cannot contain any other attributes or elements.

However, the "only text" restriction is somewhat misleading. The text can be of many different type. It can be one of the types included in the XML Schema definition ( string,boolean, date, etc.), or it can be a custom type that you can define yourself.

You can also add restriction (facets) to a data type in order to limit its content, or you can require the data to match a specific pattern.

The syntax for defining a simple element is as follows:

where xxx is the name of the elements and yyy is the data types of the element.

XML Schema has a lot of built-in data type. The most common types are as follows:

• xs:string
• xs:integer
• xs:decimal
• xs:boolean
• xs:date
• xs:time

And here are the corresponding simple elements definition:

Simple elements may have default value OR a fixed value specified.

A default value is automatically assigned to the elements when no other value is specified.

In the following example the default value is "blue":

A fixed value is also automatically assigned to the elements, and you cannot specify another value.

In the following example the fixed value is "blue":