Introduction to XML

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.

Prerequisites: None. Some familiarity with HTML will be beneficial.

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

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

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

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