Sequence Group Nodes

Overview

In BizTalk Editor, you can insert a Sequence Group node to contain other nodes that must appear in an instance message in the same order in which they appear within the Sequence Group node. The contained nodes must be nodes that correspond to XML elements, but cannot be nodes that correspond to XML attributes.

Note

In BizTalk Editor, the Sequence Group node is represented by default with the string <Sequence> in the schema tree view. If you set a reference to a Sequence Group node, such as x, it is represented as <Group:x> in the schema tree view.

You may want to add a Sequence Group to declare a global element group.

You may need to create a schema for XML as follows.

<Root>  
    <Record1>  
        <GroupItem1/>  
        <GroupItem2/>  
        <NotAGroupItem>  
    </Record1>  
    <Record2>  
        <GroupItem1/>  
        <GroupItem2/>  
    </Record2>  
</Root>  

Because GroupItem1 and GroupItem2 exist in both cases, you may declare a global sequence group that is a child of both Record1 and Record2. For step-by-step instructions about how to declare a global sequence group, see Creating References to Another Node or Type.

A user can change the hidden group to be a Choice Group node or an All Group node (so it is not necessarily a Sequence Group node) by changing the Group Order Type property. More details on this property in the UI guidance and developers API namespace reference.

XSD representation

When a Sequence Group node is inserted into a Record node, it is inserted at the end of any other child nodes within the sequence, choice, or all element in the Record node. The following example shows a new Sequence Group node, in bold type, inserted at the end of the sequence element in a Record node (with nodes named to clarify their identity).

<xs:element name="ContainingRecord">  
    <xs:complexType>  
        <xs:sequence>  
            <xs:element name="ExistingFieldElement" type="xs:string" />  
        </xs:sequence>  
    </xs:complexType>  
</xs:element>  

See Also