An XML Schema model may contain any number of <xsd:import> elements. Their schemaLocation attributes consist of a URI reference that should be relative to the root XML Schema document. Unlike <xsd:include>, <xsd:import> has a namespace attribute that needs to match a namespace in the QName prefix namespace map.

The <xsd:import> element tag identifies namespaces used in external references, in other words, those whose QNames identify them as coming from a different namespace than the root schema document's targetNamespace. The actual value of its namespace indicates that the containing schema document may contain qualified references to schema components in that namespace (via one or more prefixes declared with namespace declarations in the normal way).

The code snippet below shows how you would create and add a <xsd:import> to a root schema document. As soon as the xsdSchema.getContents().add(0,xsdImport) method is called, you might notice that the imported schema might NOT get loaded. To force the load on a <xsd:import> you need to call ((XSDImportImpl)xsdImport).importSchema();.

//Create a XSDImport
XSDImport xsdImport = XSDFactory.eINSTANCE.createXSDImport();

//Set the uri to the xml schema file that you want to use the definitions from
xsdImport.setSchemaLocation("address.xsd");

//we always add the new imports to the top of the root schemas content list
xsdSchema.getContents().add(0,xsdImport);

//This will force load the imported schema
((XSDImportImpl)xsdImport).importSchema();