1. 1 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle XML

2. 2 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle What is XML? l "eXtensible Markup Language" l New development in web creation l Overcomes limitations of HTML small number of tags limited features several versions of the language l XML allows you to create your own tags l Separates content from presentation

3. 3 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle SGML, HTML and XML l SGML Standard Generalised Markup Language ISO standard since 1986 complex but widely used "meta-language" l HTML created using SGML for web delivery l XML a simplified version of SGML for users to create their own 'markup language' not just a new version of HTML, a different concept

4. 4 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle Creating XML Bill Bryson Notes From a Small Island Transworld Tags - "elements" Processing instruction

5. 5 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle More XML Markup Empty elements Attributes Special characters < ℞ Comments Data sections <![CDATA[ *a = &b; c = (d<=3); ]]>

6. 6 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle Using Style with XML l Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for simple web presentation booktitle { margin-left: 10%; font-weight: bold; } l Present in multiple formats - print, audio... l XSL eXtensible Style Language l Transformations of XML e.g. reorder elements

7. 7 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle XSL Transformations <xsl:for-each select="library/book" order-by="author/lastname"> XSL commands XML elements HTML template for formatting

8. 8 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle Uses of XML l Creating web pages - better structure l Improved indexing and searching www.goxml.com/ www.w3.org/XML/ l Simple "database" functionality - organising and manipulating data "fields" within the page l Configuring/manipulating information at client - presenting information in different ways to different users l "E-business" - business to business transactions, passing of tailored information e.g. inventory, ordering etc

9. 9 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle Linking Developments XLink l Multiple destinations for a link l Different presentations of a linked resource replace existing page with new (as now) embedded in existing page display in new window XPointer l Replaces internal anchor l Jump to any XML element within document

10. 10 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle XHTML: HTML in XML l Preparing HTML for use in XML browsers l HTML defined in XML Must close all tags or Tags in lower case Quote attribute values src="logo.gif" validate/correct documents www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy

11. 11 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle Browser Compatibility Support for XML and CSS in common browsers: l Netscape 4 - no XML, moderate CSS l IE4 - partial XML, reasonable CSS l IE5 - good XML and CSS l XML viewers available (special browers or plug-ins) l Server can change XML to HTML before delivery

12. 12 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle XML Applications XML is well established in some areas e.g. MathML (Mathematics Markup Language) x 2 4 x 2 +4

13. 13 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle XML Applications MathML (Mathematics Markup Language) www.w3.org/TR/REC-MathML CML (Chemical Markup Language) www.venus.co.uk/omf/cml/ RDF (Resource Description Framework) www.w3.org/RDF/ SMIL (Synchronised Multimedia Integration Language) www.w3.org/TR/1998/PR-smil-19980409/ MusicML www.tcf.nl/trends/trends6-en.html CFML (Cold Fusion, for database integration) www.allaire.com/documents/cf45docs/ acrobatdocs/45refcard.pdf

14. 14 © Netskills Quality Internet Training, University of Newcastle References W3Cs XML HomePage www.w3.org/XML/ XML Homepage www.xml.com XML FAQ www.ucc.ie/xml Ariadne web articles www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue16/what-is/