It is known that if f is an element of W-p(k), then omega(m)(f, t)(p) less than or equal to t omega(m-1) (f', t)(p) less than or equal to .... Its inverse with any constants independent off is not true in general. Hu and Yu proved that the inverse holds true for splines S with equally spaced knots, thus omega(m)(S, t)(p) similar to t omega(m-1) (S', t)(p) similar to t(2)omega(m-2)(S ", t)(p) .... In this paper, we extend their results to splines with any given knot sequence, and further to principal shift-invariant spaces and wavelets under certain conditions. Applications are given at the end of the paper. (C) 1999 Academic Press.