Group Reference (Node Property of All Schemas)

Use the Group Reference property to specify a name for the globally defined group referenced by the selected Sequence Group, Choice Group, All Group, or Attribute Group node.

Attribute Group nodes are inherently global, and therefore are given default Group Reference property values. You can change this default name to another name but you cannot change it to an empty string.

Sequence Group, Choice Group, and All Group nodes are not global by default, and therefore are not given default Group Reference property values when they are first inserted into a schema. If you provide a value for the Group Reference property of one of these element groups, either an existing value or a new unique value, you are effectively choosing to reference an existing global element group or converting the element group into a global element group, respectively.

Applies to Nodes of Type

Sequence Group, Choice Group, All Group, Attribute Group

Category

Advanced

Allowed Values

A blank value, which is not allowed for Attribute Group nodes, means that the element group is "inbuilt" and "unnamed". It has no name and cannot be used by other element groups. If you change a blank value to a brand new value, the name of the group is changed to the new value and it is moved to the global scope. If you change a blank value to an existing group name, you are reusing the chosen group at the selected location in the schema.

If there is a value, the group is declared globally and can be used by other element or attribute groups, as applicable. If you change from a value to another brand new value, the name of the group is changed to the new value. If you change from a value to an existing group name, you are reusing that group at the selected location in the schema.

Default Value

For Attribute Group nodes, the default value upon node insertion is of the form "AttrGroupN", where "N" is a monotonically increasing number starting with zero.

For Sequence Group, Choice Group, and All Group nodes, the default value upon node insertion is blank, meaning that the element group is not global.

XSD Persistence

As the values of the name and ref attributes of pairs of either group or attributeGroup elements. The group or attributeGroup element that appears at the global level of the schema has its name attribute set to the value of the Group Reference property, and the group or attributeGroup element that appears deeper in the schema hierarchy has its ref attribute set to the same value, thereby establishing the reference.

Remarks

You can examine and set this property in the Visual Studio Properties window when you select a Sequence Group, Choice Group, All Group, or Attribute Group node in BizTalk Editor.

This property represents an XSD concept related to the group and attributeGroup elements.

The value of the Group Reference property, if any, appears as the second half of the Node Name property of the selected group node, as follows:

• For Attribute Group nodes:

  <AttrGroup:GroupReferencePropertyValue>

• For Sequence Group, Choice Group, and All Group nodes:

  <Group:GroupReferencePropertyValue>

See Also

Node Properties of All Schemas