XSD Empty Elements

An empty complex element cannot contain content, only attributes.

Complex empty elements:

An empty XML element:

The "product" element above has no content at all. To define a type with no content, we must declare a type that can only contain elements in its content, but in fact we do not declare any elements, like this:

In the example above, we defined a complex type with complex content. The complexContent element signals that we intend to restrict or extend the content model of a complex type, while the integer restriction declares an attribute but does not introduce any element content.

However, the "product" element can also be declared more compactly:

Alternatively, you can give a name to a complexType element, then set a type attribute on the "product" element and reference this complexType name (by using this method, several elements can reference the same complex type):