Exploring XML
XML is integral to an increasing number of applications, both on and off-line. Much more than simply "making up your own tags", XML provides a flexible, standards-compliant, format for structuring and processing data - including web page content.
All XML documents conform to a simple framework of rules, however complex the application. The key to getting started is to understand these rules, along with how some of the core XML technologies such as XLST and XPath operate.
Topics:
- What is XML?
- The relationship between SGML, HTML, XML and XHTML
- Namespaces, DTDs and Schema
- Structuring data with XML
- XML parsers
- XML processing with XSLT and XPath
- Server-side XML processing
- What all these letters stand for!
Who is it for?
This practical workshop explores the core concepts and rules for working with XML documents. It will be of benefit to anyone looking to use XML as part of their online publishing and content management systems.
Participants must be familiar with the principles of mark-up languages (e.g. HTML) and must be comfortable editing files using a text editor such as Windows Notepad. An understanding of basic web scripting (client and/or server-side) would be useful, but is not essential.
By the end of the workshop participants will have:
- Created XML documents
- Investigated XML document validation
- Developed XSLT style sheets to transform data
- Used client and server-side scripts to transform XML documents