Web Technologies
eXtensible Markup Language (XML)
Today’s Lecture
XML
• XML Introduction
• XML Tree
• XML Syntax
• XML Elements
• XML Parser
• XML DOM
• XML Schema
XML
• XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language.
• XML was designed to store and transport/distribute data.
• XML became a W3C Recommendation in February 1998.
• XML was designed to be self-descriptive.
• XML has user defined tags, not predefined tags.
– With XML, author must define tags and document structure.
– Whereas HTML works with predefined tags like <p>, <h1>,
<table>, etc.
XML Tree
• XML documents are formed as element trees.
• XML tree starts at a root element (parent) and branches from root
to child elements.
• All elements can have sub elements (child elements):
<root>
<child>
<subchild>.....</subchild>
</child>
</root>
– Parent, child, and sibling are used to describe relationships
between elements.
• Parents have children.
• Children have parents.
XML Tree
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<bookstore>
<book category="cooking">
<title lang="en">Everyday Italian</title>
<author>Giada De Laurentiis</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>30.00</price>
</book>
<book category="children">
<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</book>
<book category="web">
<title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
<author>Erik T. Ray</author>
<year>2003</year>
<price>39.95</price>
</book>
</bookstore>
In above code, <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> (XML Prolog) defines XML version and
character encoding.
XML Syntax
• Syntax rules of XML are very simple and logical:
– XML Documents must have a root element (parent).
– All XML elements must have a closing tag.
– XML tags are case sensitive.
– XML elements must be properly nested.
– XML attribute values must always be quoted.
XML Elements
• XML document contains XML Elements.
• XML element is everything from element's start tag to element's end tag.
• Element can contain text, attributes, or other elements.
<bookstore>
<book category="children">
<title>Harry Potter</title>
<author>J. K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</book>
<book category="web">
<title>Learning XML</title>
<author>Erik T. Ray</author>
<year>2003</year>
<price>39.95</price>
</book>
</bookstore>
XML Parser
• XML DOM defines properties and methods for accessing and editing XML.
– However, before an XML document can be accessed, it must be loaded
into an XML DOM object.
– All modern browsers have a built-in XML parser that can convert text
into an XML DOM object.
• Example: parses a text string into an XML DOM object, and extracts info
from it with JavaScript.
<html><body><p id="demo"></p>
<script>
var text, parser, xmlDoc;
text = "<bookstore><book>" + "<title>Everyday Italian</title>" + "<author>Giada De
Laurentiis</author>" + "<year>2005</year>" + "</book></bookstore>";
parser = new DOMParser();
xmlDoc = parser.parseFromString(text,"text/xml");
document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML =
xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("title")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
</script>
</body></html>
Everyday Italian
XML DOM
• DOM
– It defines a standard for accessing and manipulating documents.
• HTML DOM
– It defines a standard way for accessing and manipulating HTML
documents.
• It presents an HTML document as a tree-structure.
• XML DOM
– It defines a standard way for accessing and manipulating XML
documents.
• It presents an XML document as a tree-structure.
XML Schema
• XML Schema describes the structure of an XML document.
<xs:element name="note">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="to" type="xs:string"/>
<xs:element name="from" type="xs:string"/>
<xs:element name="heading" type="xs:string"/>
<xs:element name="body" type="xs:string"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
– <xs:element name="note"> defines element called "note".
– <xs:complexType> "note" element is a complex type.
– <xs:sequence> complex type is a sequence of elements.
– <xs:element name="to" type="xs:string"/> element "to" is of type string.
– <xs:element name="from" type="xs:string"/> element "from" is of type string.
– <xs:element name="heading" type="xs:string"/> element "heading" is of type string.
– <xs:element name="body" type="xs:string"/> element "body" is of type string.
Summary of Today’s Lecture
XML
• XML Introduction
• XML Tree
• XML Syntax
• XML Elements
• XML Parser
• XML DOM
• XML Schema
References
• https://www.w3.org/XML/
• https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
