XML Fundamentals

• Outline
• Part I: XML Overview
• What is XML?
• XML is a Meta Markup Language
• XML describes structure and semantics, not formatting
• A Song Description in HTML
• A Song Description in XML
• The XML Declaration
• Elements
• Style Sheets provide formatting
• Attaching style sheets to documents
• song.xsl
• Applying an XSLT Style Sheet
• Output
• Editing and Saving XML Documents
• Questions?
• Part II: What is XML Good For?
• What is XML used for?
• Domain-Specific Markup Languages
• Self-Describing Data
• An XML Fragment
• Interchange of Data Among Applications
• Can assemble data from multiple sources
• XML Applications
• Example XML Applications
• Mathematical Markup Language
• Channel Definition Format
• Classic Literature
• Vector Graphics
• The Resource Description Framework (RDF)
• An Example of RDF
• XML for XML
• XSL: The Extensible Stylesheet Language
• Schemas
• W3C XML Schema Language Example
• XLinks
• File Formats, in-house applications, and other behind the scenes uses
• Questions?
• Part III: A Practical Example
• A larger example: Music Catalog
• Sample Catalog
• Organizing the Data
• What is the Root Element
• The Root Element
• What are the Immediate Children of the Root?
• Child Elements
• White space in XML is not especially significant
• Composers
• Grand Children
• Attributes
• Attributes vs. Elements
• When not to use attributes
• Compositions
• Each composition has a
• Composition Example in XML
• Further Divisions
• Attaching the Composer to the Composition
• Some Keywords For the Search Engines
• Standard Signature
• Cascading Style Sheets
• A Blank Style Sheet
• The Default Rule
• A style rule for the category element
• A style rule for the composer element
• A style rule for the title element
• A style rule for the catalog info
• Style rules for the signature
• Style Rules for composition children
• Finished Style Sheet
• Possible Extensions
• Possible Solutions
• CSS or XSL?
• Questions?
• Part IV: Well-formedness
• Well-formedness Rules
• Open and close all tags
• Empty tags end with />
• There is a unique root element
• Elements may not overlap
• Attribute values are quoted
• < and & are only used to start tags and entities
• Only the five predefined entity references are used
• Character References
• Questions?
• Part V: DTDs
• Well-formedness vs validity
• DTDs and Validity
• What is a DTD?
• Validity
• A Valid Song Document
• Checking Validity
• Internal DTDs
• The importance of validation
• Where are DTDs Important?
• Domain-Specific Markup Languages
• Self-Describing Data
• Interchange of Data Among Applications
• Structured and Integrated Data
• An Example Document
• Element Declarations
• Content Specifications
• ANY
• #PCDATA
• #PCDATA
• #PCDATA
• Comments in DTDs
• Child Elements
• Child Elements
• Sequences
• More Sequences
• One or More Children +
• Zero or More Children *
• Zero or One Children ?
• Choices
• Mixed Content
• Content Models You Can't Declare
• Attribute Declarations
• Multiple Attribute Declarations
• Attribute Default Values
• #REQUIRED
• #IMPLIED
• #FIXED
• Attribute Types
• CDATA
• ID
• IDREF
• IDREFS
• Finished DTD
• Questions?
• Part VI: Namespaces
• Raison d'etre
• The Need for Namespaces
• Namespaces disambiguate elements
• Namespace Syntax
• Namespace URIs
• Binding Prefixes to Namespace URIs
• Binding Prefixes to Namespace URIs Example
• Binding namespaces to prefixes with #FIXED ATTLIST declarations
• Unprefixed attributes are never in any namespace
• URIs matter; not prefixes
• Namespace URIs do not necessarily point to a document, page, or schema
• The Default Namespace
• Binding default namespaces to elements with #FIXED ATTLISTs
• Namespaces and DTDs
• Questions?
• To Learn More
• Part VII: XSL, the Extensible Stylesheet Language
• What Is XSL?
• Versions
• The Process of an XSL Transformation
• An Example XML Document
• An XSL Style Sheet
• Output
• Templates
• The actual HTML output
• Adding the root
• The actual HTML output
• Applying Templates
• The actual HTML output
• The select attribute
• The actual HTML output
• Expanding the coverage
• The actual HTML output
• Attributes
• The actual HTML output
• Attribute Value Templates
• The actual HTML output
• xsl:copy
• The generated HTML
• The Or Operator in Match Patterns
• The * wildcard
• The node() and @* wildcards
• Are we being too greedy?
• Testing conditions with xsl:if
• The actual HTML output
• Matching composers with compositions
• Matching composers with compositions
• The actual HTML output
• Sorting with xsl:sort
• The actual HTML output
• Multiple Key Sorts
• The actual HTML output
• Sorting by Composition Title
• The actual HTML output
• xsl:for-each
• The actual HTML output
• Sorting the Table of Contents
• Adding Links from the Table of Contents
• The actual HTML output
• Where Does the XML Transformation Happen?
• Client Side Processing
• A style sheet that works with Internet Explorer 5
• What else does XSLT have?
• What does XSLT not have?
• Summary
• Questions?

Entire Presentation as Single File