A posting from Kohsuke KAWAGUCHI (Sun Microsystems) announces the availability of an updated version of Sun's Multi-Schema XML Validator (MSV), along with three new schema-related tools. The new Sun XML Instance Generator "is a Java technology tool to generate various XML instances from several kinds of schemas; it supports DTD, RELAX Namespace, RELAX Core, TREX, and a subset of XML Schema Part 1. The RELAX NG Converter is a tool to convert schemas written in various schema languages to their equivalent in RELAX NG. The new Multi-Schema XML Validator Schematron add-on is a Java tool to validate XML documents against RELAX NG schemas annotated with Schematron schemas. By using this tool, you can embed Schematron constraints into RELAX NG schemas, making it easy to write many constraints that are difficult to achieve by RELAX NG alone."

Details from the Sun web site descriptions:

Sun XML Instance Generator. The Preview Version 1 release [October, 2001] of the Sun XML Instance Generator is a Java tool to generate various XML instances from several kinds of schemas. It supports DTD, RELAX Namespace, RELAX Core, TREX, and a subset of W3C XML Schema Part 1. This release includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation. This is a command-line tool that can generate both valid and invalid instances from schemas. It can be used for generating test cases for XML applications that need to conform to a particular schema. For example: (1) To load-test applications against large documents (2) To ensure that documents are processed correctly (3) To check the behavior of XSL stylesheets...

Sun RELAX NG Converter. The Sun RELAX NG Converter is a tool to convert schemas written in various schema languages to their equivalent in RELAX NG. It supports schemas written in XML DTD, RELAX Core, RELAX namespace, TREX, W3C XML Schema, and RELAX NG itself. The converter detects the schema language automatically (except for XML DTDs) and writes the result to result.rng. This release includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation. The software relies on Sun Multi-Schema Validator (MSV). Therefore any limitations of MSV apply also to this converter.

Sun Multi-Schema XML Validator Schematron Add-on. The Sun Multi-Schema XML Validator Schematron add-on is a Java tool to validate XML documents against RELAX NG schemas annotated with Schematron schemas. This release includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation. By using this tool, you can embed Schematron constraints into RELAX NG schemas. Then this tool validates documents against both RELAX NG grammar and embedded schematron constraints. Schematron makes it easy to write many constraints which are difficult to achieve by RELAX NG alone. Features: (1) This release supports Schematron constraints to be embedded in the <element> pattern of RELAX NG. (2) This tool also supports the use of <rule> elements in RELAX NG grammar. (3) This release supports <rule>, <assert> and <report> of Schematron 1.3. You can write as many constraints as you want in one <element> pattern. (4) Namespace prefixes found in XPath expression are resolved through xmlns declarations in the grammar file. (5) Annotated RELAX NG grammars are still interoperable in the sense that other RELAX NG processors will silently ignore all Schematron constraints.

Sun Multi-Schema XML Validator. The Sun Multi-Schema XML Validator (MSV) is a Java technology tool to validate XML documents against several kinds of XML schemata. It supports RELAX NG, RELAX Namespace, RELAX Core, TREX, XML DTDs, and most of XML Schema. This download package includes binaries, source code, and detailed documentation. The tool is: (1) A command line tool that can read XML documents and validate them against a schema (DTD/RELAX/TREX/W3C). If an error is found, error messages are provided. (2) A library that can be incorporated into Java applications as a validator. See the included commandline.html file for details on how to use MSV from the command line.