This one-day course introduces the eXtensible Markup Language, or XML, including basic grammar and XML validation using DTDs or XML Schema. Students learn to read and to hand-write XML well-formed XML documents, and then proceed to modeling concepts, first learning the basic DTD language and then studying namespaces and XML Schema. The course closes with a chapter on important XML-related technology, including XPath, XSLT, SAX or DOM parsing, and SOAP-based Web services.

The module presents what might be called "Pure XML" -- by which we mean two things. Firstly, everything in the module is based strictly on W3C specifications, without any vendor-specific extensions. Secondly, no knowledge of any particular programming language or other external technology is required to participate fully in the module. Thus the hands-on exercises, and the knowledge that is developed, are portable and applicable to any XML authoring or development effort.

Prerequisites

• None. Some familiarity with HTML will be beneficial.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the broad influence of XML on emerging software architectures.
• Write well-formed XML documents to express simple or complex document content.
• Write DTDs to set rules for XML document validation.
• Write valid XML documents with internal and/or external document type definitions.
• Understand the limitations of DTDs in expressing document and object designs and in setting strict validation rules.
• Read and write XML using namespaces to import type information and to partition the XML namespace.
• Use XML Schema to validate XML documents.
• Understand the roles of XPath, XSLT, parsing, and Web services in the broader scope of XML technology in software applications.

Timeline: 1 day.

Chapter 1. A Brief History of XML

• Birth of XML
• Content vs. Presentation
• Self-Describing Data
• A Standard Document Format
• Uses for XML

Chapter 2. XML Grammar

• Structure of an XML Document
• Handling Whitespace
• Character and Entity References
• Well-Formed XML
• Elements
• Attributes
• Processing Instructions
• Comments
• CDATA Sections

Chapter 3. Valid XML

• Document Types
• DTD Structure
• Defining Elements
• Cardinality
• Attributes
• Required, Implied, Default, and Fixed Attributes
• Enumerations
• XML Namespaces
• Limitations of DTDs
• XML Schema
• Advantages of XML Schema
• Data Types

Chapter 4. Using XML in Applications

• SAX and DOM Parsing
• XSLT
• XPath
• XSL-FO
• Web Services
• SOAP

Appendix A. Learning Resources

System Requirements