Web Development with XML

Even if you are a complete beginner to web development, you would have definitely heard of the term ‘XML’. This and Java would probably be two of the biggest buzzwords in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the internet was rising rapidly and so were its development standards.

XML is one of the most hyped terms in web development, but how important is it? How big a deal is XML for web development? In the shortest words, XML makes your web applications, including websites, more powerful, versatile and smarter. This guide removes all the hype surrounding XML that has characterized most of its discussions. It instead focuses on delivering the knowledge and background needed to master this markup language.

Here, we give you a general introduction to our training course for XML for web development. To begin with, let’s start with what XML is all about.

About XML For Web Development

What is XML? Let’s start with its full-form, shall we? XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. To make things simple, let’s break this down to an explanation of each of the three words.

• Extensible:

Above all, XML is an extensible language. This means that you have the freedom to define your tags and the order of their occurrence, and how they are displayed and processed. In other words, extensibility here refers to how XML lets you extend your idea of a document. It could be transient data flowing between systems, like Web Services, or it could be a traditional file in a server.

• Markup:

The above paragraph talked about defining tags. And tags make up most of this language. In XML, these tags are referred to as elements, and the elements made in XML are very similar to those you make using HTML. However, as mentioned above, the key different between the two markup languages – XML and HTML – is that XML lets you define your own elements.

• Language

Finally, despite their differences, XML and HTML share a lot of similarities, which is a good thing considering you can easily switch from HTML to XML. However, XML is a lot more flexible than its predecessor. And it is also important to note that XML is more than just a simple markup language. It is a meta-language, in that it lets the user define or create other languages. XML has helped programmers create other languages like the mathematical markup language, MathML, and RSS. It has also been used to make tools such as XSLT.

Why is XML important?

Now that you know a little about what XML is, let’s look at why it is so important for web development. XML is needed because it does what HTML cannot do. HTML was designed specifically for describing documents to display them on a web browser. Apart from that, HTML can make it rather difficult to do more complicated things, like displaying documents on a mobile device or translating content to other languages. Its main purpose is to create and share web documents quickly.

On the other hand, XML is more than just about the web. It is also usable for other purposes, beyond just serving as an interface between the user and the content. For instance, XML is used by Web Services to send responses and requests. HTML rarely provides information on the structure of a document or the reasoning behind this structure. In simple terms, XML is a data description language and HTML is a presentation language.

XML Training Description

Now, let’s look at what exactly you can learn from this course. Here is the breakdown of the various sections and lectures included in the web development for XML training course:

Section 1: Introduction

This section covers the introduction to XML, including an introduction to XML and its applications in web design and development. It also teaches you all the basic terms and elements of XML you need to know to go further, as well as its naming rules and practices.

• What is XML?

We explore what XML is in a little more detail than the above introduction. It is important to note that XML is not a replacement to HTML. Rather, it was designed with a different goal and serves a different purpose apart from HTML.

• Applications of XML

Here, we explore the applications of XML in web developing, including its use in describing and identifying information unambiguously and accurately, allowing the creating and handling of document sets without structure errors.

• XML Format and Structure, XML Elements, XML Attributes, XML Tag

One of the most powerful things about XML is its format and structure. In order to understand an XML file’s data structure and intent, all you need to do is look at the file. This chapter introduces you to all the topics you must master to become an expert in XML: its structure, elements, attributes and tags.

• XML Syntax, XML Naming Rules and Practices

Now that you know the key components of XML, it’s time to learn about how to use them to write a document. By the end of this lecture, you would be aware of the rules to follow and the syntax to use for coding in XML.

Section 2: Well-Formedness, Schemas and Validation

With the basics now covered, it’s time to increase the scope and cover the larger issues of XML document form, schemas and validation.

• XML Schema

The XML Schema is the W3C recommendation specifying the formal description of elements in an XML document. An XML document validated against an XML Schema is called ‘valid’ and ‘well formed’. Learn more about it through this lecture and to verify that the documents you create adhere to the element description.

• Simple Type

Find out more about the simpleType element in the XML Schema, which defines a simple type as well as provides the specifications for information and constraints in the values of text-only elements or attributes.

• Pattern Constraints

XML Schemas use restrictions for defining acceptable XML attribute and element values. Pattern constraints are a type of restriction used to limit an XML element’s content for defining a series of letter or numbers that can be used.

• Restrictions on a series of Values

Here, the lecture describes the XML Schema restrictions on values, and how you can set restrictions using pattern constraints.

• Complex type with Mixed Content

A complex XML element is one that has other attributes and/or elements. There are four types of complex elements: empty, elements with only other elements, elements with only text, and elements with both text and other elements.

• Reference a Group

The group element is used for defining a group of elements for use in complex type definitions. This lecture shows you how to group a set of attributes into a group with complex type definitions.

• Schema Examples

This lecture shows you how to write an XML Schema and the different ways to do so.

• Final schema

Learn more about the final schema attribute and how to use it.

Section 3: View XML

At this point you should know how to write and validate an XML document. Now let’s look at how to view it.

• View Raw XML in Browser

You’ve made a well-formed XML file, but not expect the file to be displayed on a browser as HTML files. Raw XML files are viewable on all major browsers, and here is where you learn to open these files.

• View XML with XSLT, CSS, HTML

It’s time to start turning raw to refined! You can use XSLT, CSS or HTML to transfer an XML document into XHTML for your browser.

Section 4: XML Parser

A parser is a program component that converts a physical representation of data to an in-memory form for a program to use. XML parsers are used to read XML and enable programs to use that XML. In this section, you learn what parsers are and what XML parsers do in greater detail, as well as getting introduced to the main types of parsers: SAX, DOM and pull.

Section 5: XSLT

We touched upon XSLT in brief, but here we go into great detail on XLST. XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) is a language that converts your XML documents into XHTML or HTML formats for web pages and applications.

Section 6: Stax

Here, we learn more about StAX, a Java-based API that you can use for parsing XML documents similar to a SAX parser. The key different between Stax and SAX is that the former is a Pull API and the latter is a Push API. In case of the Stax parser, the client application has to ask the parser to get data from XML when it needs. In contrast, the client application is required to get XML data on when the SAX parser notified it when the data is available. Also, Stax lets you read and write XML documents, but SAX only lets you read.

Section 7: JAXB

JAXB stands for “Java Architecture for XML Binding”, and it is an API that lets you process and view an XML document. You can use this tool to read and write XML files. And unlike other parsers like DOM and SAX, you don’t need to know XML parsing techniques to use JAXB.

Section 8: XLink

Linking is vital for the success of a web site or application, and what better linking solution to use than the official one recommended by the W3C itself: XLink. Short for XML Linking Language, XLink is a computer language for creating bidirectional and unidirectional links to other resources, including files, query results, programs and documents. The links can be embedded into XML files, similar to hyperlinks in HTML files. Here, you learn everything about XLink and its structure and use.

Prerequisites For Web Development For Xml Training

Interested in learning this course? Before you sign up and start your journey, make sure you meet the prerequisites for this course. Don’t worry, though. The course has been designed to meet a broad audience, and so long as you have the following, you should be all good:

• Basic understanding of computers and the internet
• Basic knowledge about software and their terms
• A passion to learn and interest in IT
• A desire to expand your knowledge about coding and IT in general

Target Audience

What’s the target audience for this course? To be honest, pretty much everyone needs to have some practical knowledge of about IT and web development in this day and age. The course is therefore applicable to everyone, but the narrowest target audience for this course would be:

• Students pursuing graduation in an IT field
• Students pursuing post-graduation in an IT field
• Working professionals who want to expand their IT knowledge
• Developers that want a jumpstart to their XML learning
• People who want to learn how to build a website or to improve the effectiveness of their website
• Students in college, studying any stream
• Web developers and IT professionals who want to explore XML in greater depth.

FAQs

• Is this course for me?

Web development for XML Training has been designed for everyone from beginners to intermediate web developers who want to learn what XML is as well as gain a comprehensive understanding of XML and how to use it. If you have the interest and basic computer skills, this course should be suitable for you.

• Is there a particular order to follow?

The sections and lectures have been built on each other. While it is not required, it is highly recommended that you start the course right from the beginning. The sections are mostly self-contained, and should be easier to pick up if you have enough domain knowledge already. So you if you want to learn about XLink or JAXB alone, you can opt to view those particular sections in the same order of lectures.

• Where is XML used anyway?

XML is used, primarily, for outsourcing data. Instead of integrated the data into HTML documents to make them bigger and more susceptible to performance issues, you can store the data in separate XML files. Since XML stores this data in plain text, the storage is also independent of platform and can be imported, exported or moved more easily.

Currently there are no Q&As for this course. Be the first to ask a question.