Kohsuke Kawaguchi has announced three new schema related tools from Sun Microsystems: an XML instance generator, a schema/DTD to RELAX NG converter, and a RELAX NG/Schematron hybrid.

The XML Instance Generator can read a schema (DTD, RELAX, RELAX NG, TREX, W3C XML Schema) and generate both valid and invalid documents for the schema. The RELAX NG Converter converts from schema languages (DTD, RELAX, W3C XML Schema etc) into the RELAX NG schema language.

Perhaps the most interesting tool of the bunch is the add-on to Sun's multi-schema validator that supports Schematron assertions embedded in RELAX NG schemas.

All the tools are available from Sun's XML page.

• In related news, Henry Thompson has announced a new release of the W3C XML Schema test collection. Thompson writes that they have "received additional contributions from Sun and NIST, and in order to improve management we've pushed the detailed results down a level, and also we've begun to include some of the XML management files." Test results are now also included for Xerces-J 1.4.3.