501. Introduction to XML
Version 1.1.1

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 days.

  * None. Some familiarity with HTML will be beneficial.

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

    Hardware, Minimum: 500 MHz, 128 meg RAM, 50 meg disk space.

    Hardware, Recommended: 1.0 GHz, 256 meg RAM, 50 meg disk space.

    Operating System: Tested on Windows 2000 Professional.  Course software should be viable on all systems which support W3C-compliant XML tools.

    Network and Security: Limited privileges required -- please see our standard security requirements at http://capcourse.com/Guides/Security.gen.html.

    Software Requirements:  All free downloadable tools.