1. XML – Its Role and Use Ben Forta Senior Product Evangelist, Macromedia

2. Agenda  The Problem  Introducing XML  Working with XML  ColdFusion MX and XML  Web Services

3. The Problem

4. An Example  Organization A works with a supplier (organization B)  Organization A does not have access to organization B's IT systems

5. The Problem  All interaction between the two organizations is manual  Order submission  Status checking  Payment  Reporting

6. The Need  The two organizations need to share information, despite differing environments and incompatible applications

7. Introducing XML

8. What XML Is Not  XML is not a way to format page layout (as is HTML)  XML is not a presentation language

9. What Is XML  XML is less a “language” per se, and more a way to describe data  XML data is described using “vocabularies”

10. Understanding XML  XML serves two primary purposes:  Provides a framework to separate data from presentation and layout  Provides a syntax that allows applications to share data  XML defines common information formats across nearly every major computing endeavor

11. Example - The Challenge  An organization relies on multiple suppliers, each of whom uses a different computer system and thus a different way to describe parts  The challenge is to retrieve real time status information from multiple sources so as to be able to present it in a consistent format

12. Example - The Solution  An XML format (a “vocabulary”) is agreed upon ahead of time, by the suppliers  Each supplier publishes data in the agreed upon format  The client retrieves the standardized data as needed

13. Example - Sample Data  Sample XML vocabulary 123 A24680 Shipped 20020101 UPS...

14. Working With XML

15. XML Terminology  DTD – data definition document describing the XML data (sometimes called a schema)  DOM – document object model, a hierarchical view of XML content  Node – an item in the DOM, nodes are made up of a type, a name, and a value  Root – top level element in a document  Element – the actual content

16. Displaying XML Data  XML is NOT a page layout language  XML describes data  XML data can be displayed in any client technology, including HTML, Flash, Java, JavaScript, ActiveX

17. Working with XML  Working with XML requires tools that can manipulate structured XML data  Read values  Walk trees  Search for and extract specific elements  Set values and build trees

18. Applying Transformations  XSL is a template language that is used to provide display rules for XML data  XML is data, XSL is a set if display rules  XSL is applied to XML generating a transformation (the actual output)

19. ColdFusion MX and XML

20.  ColdFusion provides build in support for:  Reading XML data  Writing XML content  Applying XSL transformation  Performing XPath searches

21. XML In ColdFusion  Within ColdFusion, XML documents are accessed as objects  An XML object in ColdFusion is a structure, and can be access as such  Objects are created using:   XMLNew()  XMLParse()

22. Reading XML Data  XMLParse() converts an xml document into an XML object  #root.order_status.status#

23. Writing XML Content  or XMLNew() creates XML objects that may be populated as needed #ordnum# #status#

24. Applying XSL Transformations  XSL transformation are applied using XMLTransform()  #XMLTransform(xmlfeed, xsldoc)#

25. Performing XPath Searches  XPath is a search language used to find and extract values from an XML document  XPath uses search patterns to specify search criteria 

26. Web Services

27. Why Web Services?  XML is data and facilitates data sharing  Web Services are distributed applications built on top of XML (and SOAP)  Where XML formats data for sharing, SOAP facilitates that sharing

28. Access to Web Services  provides access to any Web Services #name_french#

29. Publishing Web Services  Any ColdFusion components can be made accessible as a Web service by simply defining the ACCESS in the component method ACCESS="remote"  ColdFusion Components and methods may be secured using:  User roles  Access levels

30. Summary  XML is data sharing  ColdFusion MX makes XML usable  Web Services facilitate distributed XML data sharing

31. Q&A