Tom Silverman

One more thing:

Notice the change I made to the complexType 'Libray' name. It is now 'LibraryType' - just for readability.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:b="http://www.book.org">
<xs:import namespace="http://www.book.org" schemaLocation="Book.xsd" />
<xs:element name="Library" type="LibraryType"/>
<xs:complexType name="LibraryType">
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="BookCatalogue">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="test" type="b:BookType" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:schema>

Try it like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--Sample XML file generated by XMLSpy v2008 (http://www.altova.com)-->
<Library xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="lib.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<BookCatalogue>
<test>
<Title>Title</Title>
</test>
</BookCatalogue>
</Library>

This depends on a) What generated the instance and b) Are elements (or attributes) with the same name defined both in A.xsd and the imported schema B.xsd. If you generated the sample instance document with, say, XMLSpy, then it typically assigns namespaces to generated elements - required or not. In the second case, there is no way to use elements with the same name, originating in different schemas (vocabularies) in a none prefixed way in the same instance document.

1. Architecture: 19% (9 out of 49) - 8/9
2. Information Modeling: 22% (11 out of 49) - 11/11
3. XML Processing: 22% (11 out of 49) - 10/11
4. Transformations: 29% (14 out of 49) - 14/14
5. Testing and Tuning: 8% (4 out of 49) - 3/4

I finally did it. I had been studying intensively for 3 months, which, is way too much in retrospective and with regards for the exam difficulty. I was just over-stressed due to my experience with Sun exams which are usually way more difficult. Adding to my preparation uncertainty, is the assessment exam I took 72 hours ago, on the IBM site for $30. I only got a %70 mark. Following that score, I tried to correct my weaknesses and spent the last 2 days reviewing (not for the 1st time) the w3c XML Schema Part 0: Primer Second Edition and XSL Transformations (XSLT). The first is a long, a bit tedious document, but of supreme quality and importance. This did put me on the right path - but by no means summarizes my preparation for the exam.

The biggest exam surprise for me was the time allocated for the 49 questions. The IBM XML 000-142 time is 75 minutes!!! This, is in contrast to the assessment test I took, which allocated 90 minutes. I finished the assessment test with 12 seconds to go - imagine my surprise when the real test shaved 15 minutes off my expectations. Weird. Alas, it turned out I was prepared. The test questions were not hard. Further more, I had not encountered a single question style which I had not seen before in one version or another (see my resources later) and the questions were straight-forward and not tricky or 'wise-ass' styled. Under my definition of 'wise-ass' fall all those questions that require the choice of the 'wrong' or 'false' choices, such as: Which XML fragment will NOT validate for the above DTD?. I see no educational value in these types of questions, which at best, test your English language reading skills and draw you out of professional focus. Sun, seems to me, fond of these types of questions especially on SCJP. IBM, I think, is not.

Resources: During my preparation I exhausted all the mock exams I could find. This includes all the free ones and commercial ones. The free ones are listed in the FAQ section of this forum on JavaRanch - IBM XML Certification FAQ. All free with the exception of the IBM assessment test. This test costs $30 (not $10) and will give you a pretty good idea where you stand. There are not many commercial mock questions (simulators) available. There is a 98 questions bank available for a payment from at least three different vendors. The only difference is the application interface (one uses Flash, another Java Swing) but the questions are identical. All together I took mock exams that cover around 250 different questions - including the 49 from IBM assessment. Not a very large bank in comparison with available simulators for Sun SCXXX exams.

Next: I followed the The 3 part tutorial from IBM (also from this forums FAQ). I made extensive revision notes off these tutorials. Notice, you need to register at IBM and create and account to access these tutorials (free). Then I took the following tutorials from http://www.w3schools.com:

XML

DTD

XSLT

XPath

XQuery

Schema

Books:

XML in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition by Elliotte Rusty Harold; W. Scott Means

The XML Bible, 2nd Edition - also by Elliotte Rusty Harold

Processing XML with Java(TM): A Guide to SAX, DOM, JDOM, JAXP, and TrAX - guess by who? That's right. Elliotte Rusty Harold

Finally: I was not yet too familiar with the Java API's for DOM and SAX and I lacked JAXP experience. I reviewed the API for the Java 1.6 API specs for the following packages (and sub-packages): org.w3c.dom and org.xml.sax. Following my assessment test at IBM I went back to these specs and reviewed the org.w3c.dom.events package which caused me to review the Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Events Specification. and reviewed many excellent articles on JavaWorld such as the three parts article:

Part 1. Use the Simple API for XML (SAX) to process XML in Java easily

Part 2. Learn about SAX and XML validation through illustrative examples

Part 3. DOMination: Take control of structured documents with the Document Object Model

and another excellent article:

Take the sting out of SAX

And to satisfy my curiosity only (this was not required to pass IBM 142) I also went through the Sun tutorial Using JAXB.

For all code examples and sources provided with the JavaWorld articles I used MyEclipse IDE (which I am used to and like) and for all XML related files (DTD,Schema,XML, XHTML, XSL, QL and etc...) I used XMLSpy which is a must have tool for XML. For those questions related to SAX parse events (giving an XML fragment - asking what SAX events will be fired at which order) , I wrote a little class based on the SAXEcho from one of the IBM 3 part tutorials. For each XML fragment under question, I fed it to this class and watched the events being echoed to System.out - until I got the hang of it. I also experienced a lot with XMLSpy writing schemas and corresponding XML instances using advanced features such as xsd:unique and xsd:selector with xsd:field to define unique constraints. (see the primer).

Tip an occurring subject of importance in more than one mock exam is the knowledge of Building Content Models with XML schemas in particular substitution groups and xsd:all, xsd:choice and xsd:sequence. Learn how the minOccurs and maxOccurs affect the content model when a) defined on the grouping element (e.g. xsd:choice) and b) on the group elements themselves.

Good Luck!!!

I am glad I did. The test questions are very similar in nature to the bank of 98 sample questions available from several commercial sample exam vendors. Do note, the 98 questions bank (identical one) is available from many vendors. The questions are the same, the simulator interface is different. I have been studying for XML 142 using the commercial simulator for some time now and in general it is very helpful. The problem is that 98 questions are not enough in contrast to the Whizlabs SCJXXX simulators with hundreds of questions. To assess my preparation level I took the IBM assessment test.

Some of the questions were almost identical to the sample bank questions, at least used the same XML fragments which is helpful in a time stressed test if you know the question subject fragment. There were at least 3 different questions regarding the class hierarchy of SAX2 and DOM2 including questions regarding the DOM2 Event Model - which was a surprise to me. There was one question regarding XForms - something about using a date input field and using a browser specific date control, and one XQuery question related to fn:distinct-values((item,item,...),collation).

There were NO wise ass questions asking you to choose 'false' statements and no questions asking about which XML fragment will NOT validate - only which fragment WILL validate. There were 14 questions regarding transformations some present a parametrized template where the question gives the initial values of the parameters and asks what is the result. These questions were not as complex as the 98 questions bank of the same nature.

Many questions just deal with what you would do to provide the best XML solution for a given situation. Such for example, what is the correct way to transfer binary data via XML including the option that it is not possible at all (wrong). These questions deal a lot with when it is appropriate to perform transformation on the server side and when on client side - and if done on server side - is it still possible to send to browsers just portions of the required data (such as CSS and JavaScript files). Many questions deal with RDBMS related solutions with distinctions between XML aware databases and regular ones and how to model and constraint XML data to fit in relations (see ID/IDREF key/keyref and unique).

In view of my experience I recommend the 98 questions bank (google it) and taking the IBM assessment exam which is similar - it also lets you deal with the time constraint (49 questions in 90 minutes). You may be surprised - but it's very little time. You need to identify your strength and weaknesses and not waste too much time figuring out what an XSL template does or doesn't and just guess the correct answer and move on to many other easier questions. There are many easy questions. I recommend: If you know the answer fill it in and forget about it. If you have doubts, mark the question for review and move on to the next easy question. Finally, go back to the tough ones and prioritize the ones you can actually get right. Guess the rest - eliminating what you identify as wrong (bad syntax, invalid or dumb) answers.

Good luck

Ok, I see. Well, a propriety exam simulator is just a bonus. Nothing can actually replace studying the specs and API's. Sun also has tutorials for each technology (most are usually very good) and there are available books (many with free preview and source code samples).

I am not planning on SCJA - What's the point after SCJP? If you meant SCEA than I'm saving it for last. I find it amazing that Sun does not require other JEE technology certifications as a pre-requirement for SCEA. I, however, think, that the 'astronaut architect' era had passed long ago. Architcts do need, despite the Sun philosophy. to be familliar with the technologies they plan. So I plan on SCDJWS next and also SCMAD. This is despite my strong held opinion that the majority of cellular applications oriented enterprises are simply 'Luft Gecheft' and the only population profiting from this technology is the programmers themselves. Nevertheless, I'm not likely to encounter this technology in my work so I want to get familiar with it on my own time.

I did not use enthuware simulators so far. I did however, applied for tutoring and verification services for my SCJD. I was very pleased with the service I got, which was professional and addressed all project requirements. I am definitely going to use enthuware simulator for further certification training.

Hi all. I have completed four certifications so far. The hardest thing for me is to figure out the legal documents, trademark agreements and terms of use regarding sun certification logos. These documents seemed to be formulated by lawyers who have the remarkable ability to spill out miles of text, yet, say nothing. The bottom line is, can I use my logos in my e-mail business signature? Can I use it my resume? Why does Sun bother with so much paper work regarding protecting their usage of the logos, yet, the logo is a 'White Label' and does not even contain my name on it? Anyone can nick it, right? What's the point?

I recommend against Whizlabs SBCD5 unless you are very confident in your knowledge. SBCD5 is extremely buggy, many exams (including the final exam) mark correct answers as wrong and many explanations deal with topics taken from different questions. Very confusing. Many questions on SCBCD5 simulator are formulated as 'which of the following is incorrect about session beans...' Due to a bug, the simulator actually expects you to choose the correct answers. Then, to top it all, the explanation tells you something like: 'choice C is a correct answer and therefore incorrect'. By the time you get to this you can't tell your elbow from your back end and even if you knew the right answer - you are now confused about it. In my opinion it is a good idea gone bad and an outrageously poor quality product. It does, however, has a fairly large number of bank questions which will get you prepared if you are willing to do your own research and refer to the relevant API and EJB3.0 and JPA specs. See other review here.

I wish. Try more like 8 to 10 weeks. I've cleared both SCWCD and SCBCD since I took the SCJD exam. I did nag. They told me to hold my horses for another 4 weeks. Guess I will. :-)

You are right! However, the main point is this: "There is a technical issue in Prometric’s testing system that is preventing exam scores from being transferred to our database for many candidates. " This is the source of the problem. Exam results and fulfillment do not get automatically posted to the sun certmanager database so you need to either check the assignment database or nag customer support to manually update the certmanager database.

No - I'm happy here. Thank you.

I feel funny replying to my own message. However - this is the answer I got from Sun (word for word)

Thank you for contacting Sun Certification Customer Support. We are happy to assist you.



We apologize for the delay in the posting of your exam results. We have verified your exam results from the Assignment Watcher database and processed your certification as a Sun Certified Developer for the Java 2 Platform in the Sun CertManager Database at http://www.certmanager.net/sun.



Your Sun certification welcome package is being processed. Please allow up to four weeks for delivery.



There is a technical issue in Prometric’s testing system that is preventing exam scores from being transferred to our database for many candidates. Until the issue is resolved, we have verified your passing exam result and manually granted your certification. The exam results will not appear until a later date. This will cause no problems with your certified status.



Please let us know if we may be of further assistance. Thank you for choosing Sun products and services.

Since taking the SCJD exam (2 months ago), I've been regularly checking the http://www.certmanager.net/sun/ database. This URL redirects to https://i7lp.integral7.com/durango/do/login and displays the candidate exam history. My project grading (to this day) is not on it. The exam however is mentioned with a 'pending' status. All my other exams are listed too.

I was about to nag Who2Contact customer support about this - when I encountered one of my old e-mails from them, with a link to https://www.certmanager.net/sun_assignment/. This is the URL for downloading and uploading an assignment. It also includes a test history link. When I clicked that link I discovered I passed the SCJD exam and project, and was (handsomely) graded a long time ago. Since the grade does not appear in the http://www.certmanager.net/sun/ database, and since I did not yet receive the certification package - I was wondering, who runs the 'integral7' site?

Is this a sun 3rd party site? How are (and if) these databases synchronized? Did anyone encounter such a case? Should I start nagging the customer support? Will Jim have a second cup of coffee at home? (just kidding)

Thanks in advance.