Summary of Import and Include Mechanisms

So far we have briefly covered both WSDL import and include and schema import and include. The following table summarizes the similarities and differences between the WSDL 2.0 and XML Schema include and import mechanisms. We will talk a lot more about importing mechanisms in 3.1 Importing WSDL and 3.2 Importing Schemas

Table 2-1. Summary of Import and Include Mechanisms

Mechanism	Object	Meaning	Visibility of Schema Components
wsdl:import	WSDL 2.0 Namespace	Declare that WSDL 2.0 components refer to WSDL 2.0 components from a DIFFERENT targetNamespace.	XML Schema Components in the imported Description component are NOT visible to the containing description.
wsdl:include	WSDL 2.0 Document	Merge Interface, Binding and Service components from another WSDL 2.0 document that has the SAME targetNamespace.	XML Schema components in the included Description component's {element declarations} and {type definitions} properties are visible to the containing description.
wsdl:types/ xs:import	XML Schema Namespace	Declare that XML Schema components refer to XML Schema components from a DIFFERENT targetNamespace.	XML Schema components in the imported namespace are visible to the containing description.
wsdl:types/ xs:schema/xs:import	XML Schema Namespace	Declare that XML Schema components refer to XML Schema components from a DIFFERENT targetNamespace.	XML Schema components in the imported namespace are NOT visible to the containing description.
wsdl:types/ xs:schema/xs:include	XML Schema Document	Merge XML Schema components from another XML Schema document that has the SAME or NO targetNamespace.	XML Schema components in the included document are visible to the containing description.