- Sams Teach Yourself XML in 21 Days, Third Edition
- Table of Contents
- About the Author
- Acknowledgments
- We Want to Hear from You!
- Introduction
- Part I: At a Glance
- Day 1. Welcome to XML
- All About Markup Languages
- All About XML
- Looking at XML in a Browser
- Working with XML Data Yourself
- Structuring Your Data
- Creating Well-Formed XML Documents
- Creating Valid XML Documents
- How XML Is Used in the Real World
- Online XML Resources
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 2. Creating XML Documents
- Choosing an XML Editor
- Using XML Browsers
- Using XML Validators
- Creating XML Documents Piece by Piece
- Creating Prologs
- Creating an XML Declaration
- Creating XML Comments
- Creating Processing Instructions
- Creating Tags and Elements
- Creating CDATA Sections
- Handling Entities
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 3. Creating Well-Formed XML Documents
- What Makes an XML Document Well-Formed?
- Creating an Example XML Document
- Understanding the Well-Formedness Constraints
- Using XML Namespaces
- Understanding XML Infosets
- Understanding Canonical XML
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 4. Creating Valid XML Documents: DTDs
- All About DTDs
- Validating a Document by Using a DTD
- Creating Element Content Models
- Commenting a DTD
- Supporting External DTDs
- Handling Namespaces in DTDs
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Declaring Attributes in DTDs
- Day 5. Handling Attributes and Entities in DTDs
- Specifying Default Values
- Specifying Attribute Types
- Handling Entities
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 6. Creating Valid XML Documents: XML Schemas
- Using XML Schema Tools
- Creating XML Schemas
- Dissecting an XML Schema
- The Built-in XML Schema Elements
- Creating Elements and Types
- Specifying a Number of Elements
- Specifying Element Default Values
- Creating Attributes
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 7. Creating Types in XML Schemas
- Restricting Simple Types by Using XML Schema Facets
- Creating XML Schema Choices
- Using Anonymous Type Definitions
- Declaring Empty Elements
- Declaring Mixed-Content Elements
- Grouping Elements Together
- Grouping Attributes Together
- Declaring all Groups
- Handling Namespaces in Schemas
- Annotating an XML Schema
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Part I. In Review
- Well-Formed Documents
- Valid Documents
- Part II: At a Glance
- Day 8. Formatting XML by Using Cascading Style Sheets
- Our Sample XML Document
- Introducing CSS
- Connecting CSS Style Sheets and XML Documents
- Creating Style Sheet Selectors
- Using Inline Styles
- Creating Style Rule Specifications in Style Sheets
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 9. Formatting XML by Using XSLT
- Introducing XSLT
- Transforming XML by Using XSLT
- Writing XSLT Style Sheets
- Using <xsl:apply-templates>
- Using <xsl:value-of> and <xsl:for-each>
- Matching Nodes by Using the match Attribute
- Working with the select Attribute and XPath
- Using <xsl:copy>
- Using <xsl:if>
- Using <xsl:choose>
- Specifying the Output Document Type
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 10. Working with XSL Formatting Objects
- Introducing XSL-FO
- Using XSL-FO
- Using XSL Formatting Objects and Properties
- Building an XSL-FO Document
- Handling Inline Formatting
- Formatting Lists
- Formatting Tables
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Part II. In Review
- Using CSS
- Using XSLT
- Using XSL-FO
- Part III: At a Glance
- Day 11. Extending HTML with XHTML
- Why XHTML?
- Writing XHTML Documents
- Validating XHTML Documents
- The Basic XHTML Elements
- Organizing Text
- Formatting Text
- Selecting Fonts: <font>
- Comments: <!-->
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 12. Putting XHTML to Work
- Creating Hyperlinks: <a>
- Linking to Other Documents: <link>
- Handling Images: <img>
- Creating Frame Documents: <frameset>
- Creating Frames: <frame>
- Creating Embedded Style Sheets: <style>
- Formatting Tables: <table>
- Creating Table Rows: <tr>
- Formatting Table Headers: <th>
- Formatting Table Data: <td>
- Extending XHTML
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 13. Creating Graphics and Multimedia: SVG and SMIL
- Introducing SVG
- Creating an SVG Document
- Creating Rectangles
- Adobe's SVG Viewer
- Using CSS Styles
- Creating Circles
- Creating Ellipses
- Creating Lines
- Creating Polylines
- Creating Polygons
- Creating Text
- Creating Gradients
- Creating Paths
- Creating Text Paths
- Creating Groups and Transformations
- Creating Animation
- Creating Links
- Creating Scripts
- Embedding SVG in HTML
- Introducing SMIL
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 14. Handling XLinks, XPointers, and XForms
- Introducing XLinks
- Beyond Simple XLinks
- Introducing XPointers
- Introducing XBase
- Introducing XForms
- Summary
- Workshop
- Part III. In Review
- Part IV: At a Glance
- Day 15. Using JavaScript and XML
- Introducing the W3C DOM
- Introducing the DOM Objects
- Working with the XML DOM in JavaScript
- Searching for Elements by Name
- Reading Attribute Values
- Getting All XML Data from a Document
- Validating XML Documents by Using DTDs
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 16. Using Java and .NET: DOM
- Using Java to Read XML Data
- Finding Elements by Name
- Creating an XML Browser by Using Java
- Navigating Through XML Documents
- Writing XML by Using Java
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 17. Using Java and .NET: SAX
- An Overview of SAX
- Using SAX
- Using SAX to Find Elements by Name
- Creating an XML Browser by Using Java and SAX
- Navigating Through XML Documents by Using SAX
- Writing XML by Using Java and SAX
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 18. Working with SOAP and RDF
- Introducing SOAP
- A SOAP Example in .NET
- A SOAP Example in Java
- Introducing RDF
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Part IV. In Review
- Part V: At a Glance
- Day 19. Handling XML Data Binding
- Introducing DSOs
- Binding HTML Elements to HTML Data
- Binding HTML Elements to XML Data
- Binding HTML Tables to XML Data
- Accessing Individual Data Fields
- Binding HTML Elements to XML Data by Using the XML DSO
- Binding HTML Tables to XML Data by Using the XML DSO
- Searching XML Data by Using a DSO and JavaScript
- Handling Hierarchical XML Data
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 20. Working with XML and Databases
- XML, Databases, and ASP
- Storing Databases as XML
- Using XPath with a Database
- Introducing XQuery
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Day 21. Handling XML in .NET
- Creating and Editing an XML Document in .NET
- From XML to Databases and Back
- Reading and Writing XML in .NET Code
- Using XML Controls to Display Formatted XML
- Creating XML Web Services
- Summary
- Q&A
- Workshop
- Part V. In Review
- Appendix A. Quiz Answers
- Quiz Answers for Day 1
- Quiz Answers for Day 2
- Quiz Answers for Day 3
- Quiz Answers for Day 4
- Quiz Answers for Day 5
- Quiz Answers for Day 6
- Quiz Answers for Day 7
- Quiz Answers for Day 8
- Quiz Answers for Day 9
- Quiz Answers for Day 10
- Quiz Answers for Day 11
- Quiz Answers for Day 12
- Quiz Answers for Day 13
- Quiz Answers for Day 14
- Quiz Answers for Day 15
- Quiz Answers for Day 16
- Quiz Answers for Day 17
- Quiz Answers for Day 18
- Quiz Answers for Day 19
- Quiz Answers for Day 20
- Quiz Answers for Day 21
Online XML Resources
There are plenty of XML resources available free on the Internet. For example, the XML specifications themselves are online, and although they are hard to read, they're the place to check if you want the ultimate answer on an XML question. Here's a list of official W3C Web sites on various XML topics (note that we won't see some of these topics until later in the book):
- http://www.w3c.org/xml— W3C's main XML site. A good place to start.
- http://www.w3.org/XML/Activity— The W3C activity page listing what's going on with XML these days.
- http://www.w3.org/XML/1999/XML-in-10-points— Features a mini-tutorial called "XML in 10 Points" (really only seven). Provides an XML overview.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml— The official W3C recommendation for XML 1.0. Not easy to read. We're going to cover nearly all of this specification in this book.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xml11/— The official W3C XML 1.1 candidate recommendation, which turns out to be still evolving (more than most W3C candidate recommendations at this stage have done in the past).
- http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/— The W3C outline and overview of CSS programming.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1/— The W3C CSS1 specification.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/— The W3C CSS2 specification.
- http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/— The W3C XSL page.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet/— A resource on style sheets and XML.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/— An XML namespaces resource.
- http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/— The details on Extensible Stylesheet Language.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt— The details on XSL Transformations (XSLT).
- http://www.w3.org/XML/Schema— XML schema activity page.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-0/, http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/ , and http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/— All about XML schemas.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/— The XHTML 1.0 specification.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/— The XHTML 1.1 specification.
- http://www.w3.org/XML/Linking— All about XML Pointer, XML Base, and XML Linking.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/— The XLinks specification.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr— The XPointers specification.
- http://www.w3.org/DOM/— The W3C Document Object Model (DOM).
- http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/— XForms, a new version of Web forms of the kind that currently appear in HTML documents.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlbase/— All about the XML Base specification.
- http://www.w3.org/Encryption/2001/— Discussion on XML encryption.
- http://www.w3.org/2001/XKMS/— The XML Key Management Working Group.
- http://www.w3.org/XML/Query— The XML Query specification.
- http://www.w3.org/Signature/— Deals with XML signature, an XML-compliant syntax used for representing the signature of Web resources.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath— The XPath 1.0 recommendation.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath20/— The XPath 2.0 working draft.
There are many, many non-W3C XML resources available as well, of course—just searching for "XML" on the Internet gives you about 18,300,000 matches, and more appear every day. Here's a list of some of the best of the non-W3C resources:
- http://www.xml.com— Packed with XML resources, discussions, and schedules of public events.
- http://www.xml.org— Carries information about XML in industrial and commercial settings. A reference site for XML vocabularies, DTDs, schemas, and namespaces.
- http://www.oasis-open.org— The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, OASIS, hosting many XML application specifications.
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/default.asp— Microsoft's own page on XML (note that Microsoft URLs are very volatile, and this URL might have changed by the time you look for it).
XML tutorials are also easy to find—a search for "XML Tutorial" turns up about 14,000 matches. Here's a starter list:
- http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp— A free XML tutorial.
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/tutorial/default.asp— Microsoft's XML tutorial in ten lessons (again, watch out—this URL might have changed by the time you read this).
- http://xmlfiles.com/xml/— An XML tutorial from XMLFiles.com.
- http://www.webdeveloper.com/html/html_xml_1.html— Webdeveloper.com's XML tutorial.
- http://www.ucc.ie/xml/— A comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list about XML, maintained by some of the members of the W3C's XML Working Group.
- http://www.xfront.com— An XML schema tutorial by Roger L. Costello.
You might also find some Usenet newsgroups on XML to be helpful; here are a few (note that not all news servers will carry all these groups):
- comp.text.xml— A good, free-floating XML newsgroup. If you want answers, try posting your questions here.
- microsoft.public.dotnet.xml— Discussion on using XML in Microsoft's .NET initiative.
- microsoft.public.xml— The general XML newsgroup hosted by Microsoft.
That completes your introduction to XML today. Tomorrow, we'll start taking a look at creating XML documents in depth.