XML

Dr. Koyel Datta Gupta

XML

XML is a meta markup language

for text documents / textual data

XML allows to define languages

(„applications“) to represent text
documents / textual data
Possible Advantages of
Using XML
 Truly Portable Data
 Easily readable by human users
 Very expressive (semantics near data)
 Very flexible and customizable (no finite
tag set)
 Easy to use from programs (libs available)
 Easy to convert into other representations
(XML transformation languages)
 Many additional standards and tools
 Widely used and supported
Example of an XML Document

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<address>
<name>Alice Lee</name>
<email>[email protected]</email>
<phone>212-346-1234</phone>
<birthday>1985-03-22</birthday>
</address>
Difference Between HTML and
XML

 HTML tags have a fixed meaning and

browsers know what it is.
 XML tags are different for different
applications, and users know what
they mean.
 HTML tags are used for display.
 XML tags are used to describe
documents and data.
XML Rules

 Tags are enclosed in angle brackets.

 Tags come in pairs with start-tags
and end-tags.
 Tags must be properly nested.
 <name><email>…</name></email> is not
allowed.
 <name><email>…</email><name> is.
 Tagsthat do not have end-tags must
be terminated by a ‘/’.
 <br /> is an html example.
More XML Rules

 Tags are case sensitive.

 <address> is not the same as <Address>
 XML in any combination of cases is not
allowed as part of a tag.
 Tags may not contain ‘<‘ or ‘&’.
 Tags follow Java naming conventions,
except that a single colon and other
characters are allowed. They must begin
with a letter and may not contain white
space.
 Documents must have a single root tag
that begins the document.
Encoding

 XML (like Java) uses Unicode to encode

characters.
 Unicode comes in many flavors. The most
common one used in the West is UTF-8.
 UTF-8 is a variable length code. Characters are
encoded in 1 byte, 2 bytes, or 4 bytes.
 The first 128 characters in Unicode are ASCII.
 In UTF-8, the numbers between 128 and 255
code for some of the more common characters
used in western Europe, such as ã, á, å, or ç.
 Two byte codes are used for some characters not
listed in the first 256 and some Asian ideographs.
 Four byte codes can handle any ideographs that
are left.
 Those using non-western languages should
investigate other versions of Unicode.
Well-Formed Documents

 An XML document is said to be well-formed if it

follows all the rules.

 An XML parser is used to check that all the rules

have been obeyed.

 Recent browsers come with XML parsers.

 Java 1.4 also supports an open-source parser.

XML Example Revisited

<?xml version=“1.0”?>
<address>
<name>Alice Lee</name>
<email>[email protected]</email>
<phone>212-346-1234</phone>
<birthday>1985-03-22</birthday>
</address>
 Markup for the data aids understanding of its
purpose.
 A flat text file is not nearly so clear.
Alice Lee
[email protected]
212-346-1234
1985-03-22
 The last line looks like a date, but what is it for?
Expanded Example

<?xml version = “1.0” ?>

<address>
<name>
<first>Alice</first>
<last>Lee</last>
</name>
<email>[email protected]</email>
<phone>123-45-6789</phone>
<birthday>
<year>1983</year>
<month>07</month>
<day>15</day>
</birthday>
</address>
XML Files are Trees

address
name email phone birthday

first last
year month day
XML Trees

 An XML document has a single root

node.
 The tree is a general ordered tree.
 A parent node may have any number of
children.
 Child nodes are ordered, and may have
siblings.
 Preordertraversals are usually used
for getting information out of the
tree.
Validity

 A well-formed document has a tree

structure and obeys all the XML rules.
 A particular application may add more
rules in either a DTD (document type
definition) or in a schema.
 Many specialized DTDs and schemas have
been created to describe particular areas.
 These range from disseminating news
bulletins (RSS) to chemical formulas.
 DTDs were developed first, so they are not
as comprehensive as schema.
Document Type Definitions

A DTD describes the tree structure of

a document and something about its
data.
 There are two data types, PCDATA
and CDATA.
 PCDATA is parsed character data.
 CDATA is character data, not usually
parsed.
A DTD determines how many times a
node may appear, and how child
nodes are ordered.
Defining Attributes in the DTD

 Let's start by defining the attributes for

the elements in the slide presentation.
 Note:
Add the text highlighted below to
define the attributes for
the slideshow element:
 <!ELEMENT music (song)>
 <!ATTLIST song title CDATA
#REQUIRED date CDATA #IMPLIED
author CDATA "unknown" >
Defining Entities in the DTD

 So far, you've seen predefined

entities like &amp; and you've seen
that an attribute can reference an
entity. It's time now for you to learn
how to define entities of your own.

 <!ENTITY entity-name "entity-

value">
DTD for address Example

<!ELEMENT address (name, email, phone,

birthday)>
<!ELEMENT name (first, last)>
<!ELEMENT first (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT last (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT email (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT phone (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT birthday (year, month, day)>
<!ELEMENT year (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT month (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT day (#PCDATA)>
ENTITY example
 subject_name.dtd
<!ELEMENT subject_name (#PCDATA)>
<!ENTITY WT “WEB TECHNOLOGY">
 ● subject.xml
<!DOCTYPE subject_name SYSTEM
subject_name.dtd">
<subject_name>&WT;</subject_name>
XSLT
Extensible Stylesheet Language
Transformations

 XSLT is used to transform one xml

document into another, often an html
document.
 The Transform classes are now part of Java
1.4.
 A program is used that takes as input one
xml document and produces as output
another.
 If the resulting document is in html, it can
be viewed by a web browser.
 This is a good way to display xml data.
A Style Sheet to Transform
address.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
>
<xsl:template match="address">
<html><head><title>Address
Book</title></head>
<body>
<xsl:value-of select="name"/>
<br/><xsl:value-of
select="email"/>
<br/><xsl:value-of
select="phone"/>
<br/><xsl:value-of
select="birthday"/>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>