Overview of HTML and XML
Contents
History
Usage
Examples
Advantages
Disadvantages
HTML
What is HTML?
Who created HTML?
What is the relationship between
SGML and HTML?
What is the usage of HTML?
What was the purpose of HTML?
What is HTML?
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup
Language.
– Mark up is used to describe the pieces
and parts of a document.
The Key function of the markup is to add
labels to bits of text, and based on text the
output device can decide how best to format
the content.
Who created HTML?
HTML was created by Tim Berners-
Lee at European Laboratory for
Particle Physics (CERN) in late 1980’s.
In 1992, Marc Anderson Created MOSAIC,
first graphic interface for HTML documents
at UIUC. (University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign)
Relationship with SGML
SGML (Standard Generalized Markup
Language) was created by the folks at
IBM in the 1960’s.
– SGML can truly be called the parent of HTML.
– SGML is an International Standard that describes
the relationship between a document's content
and its structure.
Usage of HTML
More than 100 Million web pages
Supported by all major browsers
Simple and Cheap
Purpose of HTML
To be simple enough to support
authoring of web pages.
Rich enough to support multimedia
embedding in documents
Flexible enough to support hypertext
linking
XML
What is XML?
What is the purpose of XML?
What are the Advantages of XML?
What are the Attributes and
Elements of XML?
What is XML?
XML stands for Extensible Markup
Language
XML is a markup language for
documents containing structured
information
XML is a language for describing
other languages
Purpose of XML
XML was designed with some goals in
mind.
– Simple Enough for everyone to learn
– Broad enough to support Rich Media
– Should not have any HTML drawbacks
– Should allow the user to create his own
tags
– should be able to interpret other languages
Elements and Attributes
Elements
– An XML element is made up of a start tag, an end
tag, and data in between. The start and end tags
describe the data in between, which is considered
the value of the element. E.g. The following
element is a element with the value ”Boston”.
– <city>Boston</city>
Elements and Attributes
Attributes
– An element can optionally contain one or more
attributes. An attribute is a name-value pair
separated by an equal sign (=)
<CITY ZIP=‘02115’>Boston</CITY>
In the above example, CITY ZIP is an
attribute of the “CITY” element
HTML Example
Look at the same HTML Code shown. HTML tags
are for browsing; they are meant for interactions
between humans and computers.
<p><b>Mr. Joe Shmoe</b>
<br>
320 Berkeley Street
<br>
Boston, MA 02115</p>
Example Continued
When rendered, the HTML in the previous example looks
like this. As you can see, HTML tags describe how
something should render. They don't contain any
information about what the data is, they only describe
how it should look.
Mr. Joe Shmoe
320 Berkeley Street
Boston, MA 02115
Example of XML
Now let's look at some sample XML Code. With XML, you can understand the
meaning of the tags. More importantly, a computer can understand them as well.
<address>
<name>
<title>Mr.</title>
<first-name>Joe</first-name>
<last-name>Shmoe</last-name>
</name>
<street>320 Berkeley Street</street>
<city>Boston</city>
<state>MA</state>
<zipcode>02115</zipcode>
</address>
Example Continued
XML from the previous example might be rendered like
this. Notice that even though the tags are different, they
can still be rendered just like HTML.
Mr. Joe Shmoe
320 Berkeley Street
Boston, MA 02115
Advantages of HTML
HTML document browser interfaces are
easy to build
HTML is easy to learn because it is very
simple.
HTML works across systems that are
otehrwise unrelated
There are some specialized structures in
HTML
Disadvantages of HTML
HTML’s Simplicity - a disadvatage as well
HTML is a weak presentation tool
HTML is also a weak markup tool
Linking in HTML is rudimentary
HTML is very instable
Advantages of XML
XML is an easy on-ramp to structured markup for
HTML users
XML is a true subset of SGML designed for use on the
Internet
It is easy to write programs that can process XML
documents
XML, like SGML, is not owned by any vendor of
hardware or software
Current XML specification is 26 pages
Disadvantages of XML
XML requires a processing application
In future, XML would require
different browsers
XML is comparatively new
That’s it Folks !
The END
