XML documents (and HTML documents) are made up by the following building blocks:
- Elements
- Tags
- Attributes
- Entities
- PCDATA
- CDATA
This is a brief explanation of each of the building blocks:
Elements
Elements are the main building blocks of both XML and HTML documents.
Examples of HTML elements are "body" and "table". Examples of XML elements
could be "my-schedule" and "date". Elements can contain text, other elements, or
be empty. Examples of empty HTML elements are "hr", "br" and "img".
Tags
Tags are used to markup elements.
A starting tag like <element_name> mark up the beginning of an element, and
an ending tag like </element_name> mark up the end of an element.
Examples:
A body element: <body>body text in between</body>. A message element:
<message>some message in between</message>
Attributes:
Attributes provide extra information about elements.
Attributes are placed inside the start tag of an element. Attributes come in
name/value pairs. The following "img" element has an additional information
about a source file:
<img src="computer.gif" />
The name of the element is "img". The name of the attribute is "src". The
value of the attribute is "computer.gif". Since the element itself is empty it
is closed by a " /".
PCDATA
PCDATA means parsed character data.
Think of character data as the text found between the start tag and the end
tag of an XML element.
PCDATA is text that will be parsed by a parser. Tags inside the text will be
treated as markup and entities will be expanded.
CDATA
CDATA also means character data.
CDATA is text that will NOT be parsed by a parser. Tags inside the text will
NOT be treated as markup and entities will not be expanded.
Entities:
Entities as variables used to define common text. Entity references are
references to entities.
Most of you will known the HTML entity reference: " " that is used to
insert an extra space in an HTML document. Entities are expanded when a document
is parsed by an XML parser.
The following entities are predefined in XML:
Entity References Character
< means "less than - < " > means "greater then - > " & means
"ampersand - & " " means "quotes - " " &apos means "apostrophe - ' "
Since, right now we do not plan to go very deep into XML coding, we'll leave
the data definition here, and move the future implication of XML.
Extensible Markup Language (XML), which complements HTML, promises to
increase the benefits that can be derived from the wealth of information found
today on IP networks around the world. This is because XML provides a uniform
method for describing and exchanging structured data. The ability to describe
structured data in an open text-based format and deliver this data using
standard HTTP protocol is significant for two reasons. XML will facilitate more
precise declarations of content and more meaningful search results across
multiple platforms. And once the data is located it will enable a new generation
of viewing and manipulating the data.
Consider an industry where interchange of data is vital, such as banking.
Banks use proprietary systems to track transactions internally, but if they use
a common XML format over the Web, then they'd be able to describe transaction
information to another institution or an application (like Quicken or MS Money).
Of course, they'd also be able to present the data in a pretty Web page. FYI:
This markup does exist. It's called OFEX, the Open Financial Exchange format.
Under certain circumstances, if IE 4 on the PC comes across a <SOFTPKG> tag
with the proper contents, a function is started that gives a user the
opportunity to update installed software. If you're using Windows 98, it's
possible that you've seen this process in action without knowing it was an XML
application.
About the author:
Amrit Hallan is a freelance web designer. For all web site development and web
promotion needs, you can get in touch with him at
http://www.bytesworth.com.
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