OVERVIEW OF XML

“The Extensible Markup Language(XML) has replaced java,

design Patterns and Object Technology as the Software Industry ‘s
solution to world hunger.”

Developed By : Jay A. Vora.

 XML is...
 XML’s History And Applications…

 XML syntax and data model

 Parsing XML Document..

 Validating XML Documents

- XML DTDs,Schema
... an eXtensible Markup Language
 ... HTML  presentation tags + your-own-tags
 ... Technology for describing Structured Information.

 ... You need domain-specific standards and code libraries to use

it effectively.
 ... Moreover, far from making java technology obsolete, XML
Works Very Well with java.
 … allows you to express the structure hierarchy and repeated
elements without contortions.
 ... It looks similar to an HTML file.
SOME HISTORY…
 SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language )
ISO Standard, 1986, for describing the structure of
complex documents.
A famous SGML language: HTML!!
Used with success in some industries that requires
ongoing maintenance of massive documentations.
Used in U.S. gvt. & contractors, large manufacturing
companies, technical info. Publishers,...
 However , SGML is Quite Complex. So it has never
caught on a big way.
 SGML wants to make sure that documents are formed
according to the rules for their document type.
 XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
 W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) --
http://www.w3.org/XML/ recommendation in 1998
 Simple subset (80/20 rule) of SGML: “ASCII of the Web”,
“Semantic Web”
 Canonical XML
 “normalization”, equivalence testing of XML documents

 SML (Simple Markup Language)

 “Reduce to the max”: No Attributes / No Processing
Instructions (PI) / No DTD / No non-character entity-
references / No CDATA marked sections / Support for only
UTF-8 character encoding / No optional features
 XML Schema
 XML Schema definition language
 X-Zoo (Xoo?), “Brave New X-World”

 Specifications CSS • Digital Signatures • ebxml Project Teams •

ebXML • IETF Specifications • Internationalization •
IOTP (Internet Open Trading Protocol) • OASIS •
Requirements Documents • SMIL •
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) • Topic Maps •
W3C Activity Pages • W3C Notes • W3C Standards •
W3C Standards-in-progress • WAP • WebDAV • XHTML •
XLink • XPath • XSLT
 Vocabularies DTDs • Music • P3P • RDF • RSS • SMIL •
W3C Standards • W3C Standards-in-progress • WML •
XHTML • XSL FO's • XSLT • XUL

XML APPLICATIONS & INDUSTRY INITIATIVES
http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/xml.html#applications
Advertising: adXML place an ad onto an ad network or to a single
vendor
Literature: Gutenberg convert the world’s great literature into
XML
Directories: dirXML Novell’s Directory Services Markup Language
(DSML)
Web Servers: apacheXML parsers, XSL, web publishing
Travel: openTravel information for airlines, hotels, and car rental
places
News: NewsML creation, transfer and delivery of news
Human Resources: XML-HR standardization of HR/electronic
recruiting XML definitions
International Dvt: IDML improve the mgt. and exchange of info.
for sustainable development
Wireless: WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) wireless devices on
the World Wide Web
Banking: MBA Mortgage Bankers Association of America -->
credit report, loan file, underwriting…
Healthcare: HL7 DTDs for prescriptions, policies & procedures,
clinical trials
Math: MathML (Mathematical Markup Language)
XML VS. HTML
 Unlike HTML, XML is case-sensitive. For Example; <H1>
and <h1> are different in XML tags.
 In HTML, you can omit end tags such as </p> or </li> tags if
it’s clear from the context where paragraph of list item ends. In
XML, you can never omit an end tag.
 In XML, elements that have single tag without a matching end
tag must in a /, as in <img src = “coffeecup.jpeg”/> .
 In XML, attribute values must be enclosed in quotation marks.
In HTML, quotation are optional.
 In HTML, you can have attribute names without values. Such
as <input type=“radio” name=“language” checked>.In XML,
such as checked=“true” or checked=“checked”
The Structure of an XML Document.:
An XML document should start with a header such as,
<?xml version=“1.0”?>
Or
<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?>
A Header is optional, but it’s highly recommended.
---------
The header can be followed by a Document Type
Definition(DTD), Such as…
<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC
“-//Sun Microsystems,Inc”>.
DTDs are an important mechanism to ensure the correctness of a
document, but they are not required.
  Finally, the body of the XML document contains the root
element,which can contain other elements,like
<?Xml version=“1.0”?>
<!DOCTYPE configuration . . . >
<configuration>
<title>
<font>
<name>Arial</name>
<size>26</size>
</font>
</title>
...
</configuration>
ELEMENTS AND THEIR CONTENT:

element
element type
<bibliography>
element

XML Tutorial, Bertram Ludäscher

<paper ID="object-fusion"> content
<authors>
<author>Y.Papakonstantinou</author>
<author>S. Abiteboul</author> empty
<author>H. Garcia-Molina</author>
</authors> element
<fullPaper source="fusion"/>
<title>Object Fusion in Mediator Systems</title>
<booktitle>VLDB 96</booktitle>
</paper>

</bibliography>
11
character content
Parsing an XML Document:
The java library supplies two kinds of XML parsers:

 Tree parser such as Document Object Model(DOM).

 Streaming parsers such as the Simple API for XML(SAX) parser
that generate events as they read an XML Document.
========
 The DOM parser is easy to use for most purpose. You would
consider a streaming parser if you process very long documents
whose tree structure would up a lot of memory.
 The DOM parser interface is standardized by the World Wide
Web(W3C).
 A Simple DOM Tree:

Document

Element
<font>

Text: Element Text: Element Text:

whitespace <name> whitespace <size> whitespace

Text: Text:
Arial 25
 Validating XML Documents:
One of the major benefits of an XML parser is that it can
automatically verify that a document has the correct structure.
To specify document structure , you can supply a DTD or an
XML Schema definition. A DTD or Schema contains rules that
how a document should formed.

XML Document Type Definitions (DTDs):

• define the structure of "allowed" documents
(i.e., valid wrt. a DTD)
•  database schema
=> improve query formulation, execution, ...
XML Schema
defines structure and data types
allows developers to build their own libraries of
interchanged data types
Thank You….