| |
XML, otherwise known as eXtensible Mark Up language is the latest buzz word on the internet. Why is this? XML is a meta language, meaning a language which describes data. Like HTML, it is a sub set of SGML (Standardized General Mark Up Language) but unlike HTML it is infinitely extensible. What do we mean by this? Well, HTML has a fixed number of tags and for the most part, these tags define what a page of text will look like in your browser will it be bold, italic, a paragraph, a heading etc. This tells you nothing about the data the page contains. In XML, there is no limit to the number of tags and each tag describes the data it contains. So, if I was summarizing these book details in XML, I would have an pair of tags which would contain the ISBN number of the book, a pair of tags, an pair of tags and so on. So what, you may ask? So... the possibilities this opens up for identifying and sorting data are huge. If I had a whole pile of individual title information sheets, and I wanted to produce a single document that listed all the ISBNs, all the prices etc, I would just sort on the specific XML tags. If I turned a book into XML the Bible, the Koran and the works of Shakespeare have already been done and then wanted details of a specific subject I would search for the XML tagged data. XML is a userfriendly version of SGML that will make the management of huge sets of online documentation much easier. It`s a language which describes data, making it much easier to find and sort by the data type you require. It opens up the opportunity for industry groups, like the healthcare and automotive industries to create their own specific languages for the interchange of data. It speeds up the transfer of data from a database on the server to an application on the client check out the Microsoft auction demo on the MS XML web page. It has immense potential, and, crucially the support of both the major browser companies. Mastering XML is certainly difficult, but XML Applications provides all the background you`ll need to get started. Early sections outline why XML is a better way to deliver Internet content. The authors look at available XML tools (including freeware utilities and the Internet Explorer 5 beta) and XML basics, such as Document Type Definitions (DSDs), cascading style sheets (CSS), and Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL). The authors also present realworld implementations of XML, including Microsoft`s Channel Definition Format and the Chemical Markup Language (for chemists).Next, the book moves on to the nittygritty of building XML documents, including design considerations, conventions, and using custom tags. Information on XML and databases follows, and then the authors highlight important XML topics, such as namespaces, XLinks and XPointers (for linking content), and the XML document object model.Later sections of the book turn to practical XML samples. First, SQL Server 6.5 is used with an XML phonelist entry application. Another example for distributing technical papers shows off the potential of using XML to work with Internet agents. A third application uses Java and XML to automatically generate static HTML for slide photographs and descriptions, a timesaving idea for Webmasters.The importance of XML is growing, and XML Applications provides URLs of Web sites that can provide more on emerging standards. This book gives the reader stateoftheart information in today`s XML with plenty of useful technical knowledge.Richard Dragan
|
| |
|