Unit Ii-Xml

Unit - II XML
Xml(Extendible Markup Language) :
XML Definition
XML stands for extensible markup language. XML was developed
around 1996 and is a subset of SGML. It's documents conform to SGML.
XML was made less complicated than SGML to enable its use on the
web. XML uses the ISO 10646 (Unicode) standard for encoding
characters. It is Meta-Markup language.
HTML
• The most popular markup language
• Defines a set of tags
• Designed for presentation for data
• HTML documents are processed by
• HTML processing application (Browser)
Strengths of HTML:
1. Easy to implement and author
• Small number of tags
• Simple relationship between tags
• Syntax-checking is very forgiving
• Limited number of formats possible
• Viewers can be small and simple
2. HTML trades power for ease of use
Weakness of HTML:
1. Fixed set of tags

• Not user extensible
• Dependency to “markup language” definition process
• Dependency to vendors
• Vendor proprietary tags
• Implementation not in sync
• Netscape browser vs. IE
2.Predefined semantics for each tag
3.Predefined data structure
4. No formal validation
• Does not support semantic search
• Based on solely on appearance (rendering) NOT on content
5. Formatting too simple
• Limited control
• Won’t do complex documents
• Poor support for print and other media
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So HTML is Not suited for handling

• ! Large and complex data
• ! Data that must be used in different ways
• ! Data with long life-cycle
• ! Data intended to drive scripts and Java applets
So XML is Born!
Motivations
• HTML would not work for publishing in general case
• Web application would require a method of encoding data that
could drive arbitrarily complex distributed processes
• Without XML, HTML would be replaced by a more powerful binary
and proprietary format
XML Design Goals
• XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet.
• XML shall support a wide variety of applications.
• XML shall be compatible with SGML.
• It shall be easy to write programs, which process XML
documents.
• The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the
absolute minimum, ideally zero.
• XML documents should be human legible and reasonably clear.
• The XML design should be prepared quickly.
• The design of XML shall be formal and concise.
• XML documents shall be easy to create.
• Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.
XML USES:
When I first began to read about XML, I had to ask, "What are its
practical uses?". I also wondered where it is actually being used
currently and how can I actually use it. I was not aware of any tools
that I could use to display XML. I did not know how I could see the
results of my XML documents. However many modern web browsers
today will display XML such as Internet Explorer version 5 or later.
Advantages
Since HTML has been so widely used and works so well (with some
weaknesses) I had to wonder what the advantages of using XML are. A
few are listed below:
• You can define your own elements and thereby support a much
wider variety of information display. XML may be used to
describe chemical structures, or other scientific or artistic data
that cannot be readily displayed using HTML.
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• Documents may be better organized into structures to allow for

easier reference using and generating items like a table of
contents.
• XML allows elements to be used to sort through database
information readily.
Key Features of XML

• Extensibility
• Media and Presentation independence
• Separation of contents from presentation
• Structure
• Validation
• Extensibility
• XML is Meta-markup language
• You define your own markup languages (tags) for your own
problem domain
• Infinite number of tags can be defined
Relationship between HTML and XML

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Actually XML was not such a new invention as it may appear. In

fact, before HTML there already existed a language called SGML, which
was mostly used by the publishing industry to markup documents in
their production process. More accidentally than planned, SGML served
as the language for defining the HTML standard (think of SGML being a
data model and HTML a schema). Only after HTML was so successful
people remembered its roots in SGML, when the need for a data model
allowing to express application-specific markup/schemas was
recognized. Since SGML was a somewhat complex language, it was
simplified in many respects, and the result of that was XML.
Why Do We Need XML ?

• Tim Bray: "XML will be the ASCII of the Web – basic,
essential, unexciting"
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• Distributed information systems

 XML as data model for managing semi-structured data
 distinction between documents and data disappears
 XML as canonical model to integrate heterogeneous data
 XML as canonical data format to exchange data among
information systems
• Web information systems
 separation of layout and structure
 better support to keep data consistent
 reuse of data
 client-side processing
 more semantics available for more intelligent processing
(personalization, agents, search engines)
• Electronic business
 Integration of businesses processes
 messages and contracts represented in XML
 replaces former EDI formats
 Standardization
• XML is an integration technology
From a distributed information systems XML plays an increasing role as
canonical data model to integrate heterogeneous data. This results on
the
one hand from its dual role as document and data model, on the other
hand on from its flexibility in modeling less regularly structured data
(semi-structured data).
From an application perspective XML plays its role in two main
areas:
• Information systems on the web: there the important advantage
compared to HTML is the separation of layout specification from data
structure. This allows to keep data consistent, reuse it, and to perform
more intelligent processing of the data.
• In electronic business XML plays its role as message format in
implementing distributed processes within and across enterprises. It
replaces earlier formats (EDI) and by being an authoritative standard it
resolves some issues of heterogeneity (mainly at the level of syntax).
XML Architecture
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The importance of XML roots not only in its inherent properties

as document markup language, but also in the fact that it is used as
the basis for a whole architecture covering almost every aspect of
information processing imaginable. This architecture is developed
under the auspices of the W3C consortium and builds on XML 1.0
syntax which has been approved by the W3C.
The architecture comprises the following components:
Programming API’s: DOM and SAX, these are required to build

applications that can process XML documents that have been parsed
and made available in main memory.
Layout and hyperlinks: standardize the language constructs needed

in order to represent the hypertext and layout properties of
documents. XML Data Management: XML Schema and XQuery provide
the languages for managing large data-oriented documents and
document-collections.
Metadata: as XML data will be exchanged and processed in many

different contexts, it will often be necessary to provide additional data
(information) about the data (metadata) in order to enable applications
and users to correctly interpret and use the data.
In addition standardized applications for specific domains are

specified (e.g. SMIL for multimedia presentation, P3P for privacy,
MathML for the markup of mathematical documents). These
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standardization are not carried out by the W3C but by other industrial
or governmental standardization bodies.
XML Namespaces:
• An XML namespace is a collection of names (markup
vocabulary)
 identified by a URI reference
 used in XML documents as element and attribute names
• URIs are used just as unique identifiers, nothing else

 in particular they do not refer to a DTD or schema
• Uses
 universally agreed names
 combination of names from different DTDs without name
conflicts
 But not combination of different DTDs
XML namespaces are a convention to distinguish different

vocabularies for different applications in order to avoid names
collisions. Consider just of how many XML applications would use the
element name "name" and what happens if an application encounters
this element name in documents originating from different sources
without being able to distinguish the origin of the name. Therefore
element and attribute names are prefixed by a label that is unique for
a namespace. The problem is of course of how to obtain these unique
labels. The solution is very simple: one uses Universal Resource
Identifiers (typically URLs). But one must be careful here: the only
purpose of using a URI (URL) is to have a unique prefix. There is
nothing else associated with the URL, in particular the corresponding
URL may not exist, it does not contain any information like a DTD or a
Schema (though often useful information pertaining to the namespace
is found under its specific URL).
Namespaces are important in order to provide universally agreed

names with unambiguous semantics that can be exploited by
applications. They also allow to combine element names from different
DTDs which would otherwise be in conflict which each other. But the
namespace concept is not related to the problem of combining
definitions from different DTDs in any way.
XML allows document authors to create their own tags, naming

collisions (i.e, two different elements that have same name) can occur.
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Ex:
We may use the element book to mark up data about one of our
publications:
A stamp collector may also create an element book to mark up
data about a book of stamps. If both of these elements were used in
the same document there would be a naming collision & it would be
difficult to determine which kind of data each element contained.
Namespaces provide a means for document authors to
prevent collisions.
Ex: -
<subject>Math</subject>
and
<subject>crocin</subject>
These two subject elements can be differentiated using

namespace.
Ex:
<school:subject>Math</school:subject>
<medical:subject>crocin</medical:subject>
Both school and medical are namespace prefixes. Namespace

prefixes are prepended to element & attribute names in order to
specify the namespace intwhich the element or attribute can be found.
Each namespace prefix is tied to uniform resource identifier (URI)

that uniquely identifies the namespace.
Document authors can create their own namespace prefixes.

Virtually any name may be used for a namespace, except the reserved
namespace XML.
Ex:
Use the XML namespace keyword xmlns to create two
namespace prefixes: text & image are called Uniform Resource
Identifiers (URI); by definition URI is a series of characters used to
differentiate names.
<?xml version=”1.0”>
<!—Namespaces
<directory xmlns:text=”urn:deitel:textinfo”
xmlns:image=”urn:deitel:imageinfo”>
<text:file filename=”book.xml”>
<text:description>A Book list</text:description>
</text:file>
<image:file filename=”funny.jpg”>
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<image:description>A Funny Picture</image:description>

<image:size width=”200” height=”100”/>
</image:file>
</directory>
To ensure that a namespace is unique, the document author

must provide a unique URI. A common practice is to use universal
Resource Locators for URIs, because the domain names used in URLs
are guaranteed to be unique.
Ex:
<directory xmlns:text=http://www.deitel.com/xmlns-text
xmlns:image=http://www.deitel.com/xmlns-img>
These URLs are never visited by the parser they only represent a
series of characters for differentiating names & nothing more. The URIs
need not even exist or be properly formed. We declare a default
namespace using the xmlns attribute with a URI as its value.
Once this default namespace is in place, child elements that are

part of this namespace do not need a namespace prefix.
Ex: -
<directory xmlns=”urn:deitel:textInfo”
xmlns:image=”urn:deitel:imageInfo”>
<file filename=”book.html”>
<description>A book list</description>
</file>
<image:dile dilename=”funny.jpg”>
<image:description>A funny picture</image:description>
</image:file>
</directory>
Parser & well formed XML documents:

A software program called an XML parser is required to process
an XML document. The XML parser reads the XML document, checks its
syntax reports any errors and allows programmatic access to the
documents comments. An XML document is considered well formed if
it is syntactically correct.
 XML is case sensitive.
Parsers can support the document object model & simple API for
XML(SAX) for accessing a documents content programmatically using
languages such as java, python, c Etc;
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A DOM based parser builds a tree structure containing the XML

documents data in memory. A SAX based parser. Processes the
document & generates the events, when tags, text, comments etc; are
encountered. These events written data from the XML document.
 IE5 have built-in XML parser MSXML

 A pache XML parser is XERCES
 Sun Microsystems java API for XML parsing is JAXP
 IBM’s parser XML for java is XML4J
Parsing an XML document with MSXML
An XML document contains data, not formatting information.

When an XML document is loaded into IE5, the document is parsed by
MSXML.
If the document is well formed, the parser makes the documents

data available to the application by using the XML document.
IE5 (changes) formats the data by applying a style sheet that

formats & colors the markup almost identically to the original
document. It is virtually done by the Microsoft i.e., presentation &
formatting.
Notice the minus sign (-) & plus sign (+) in the left margins (not a
part of XML document); it was placed by IE5, for all e3lements that
contain one or more child elements. Because these elements store
other elements they are called container elements.
Characters:
A character set consists of the characters that may be
represented in a document.
Character set:
XML documents may contain the following characters: carriage
returns, line feeds & Unicode. Unicode is a standard of the Unicode
consortium. Its goal is to enable computers to process the characters
for most of the world’s major languages.(www.uni-code.org).
Characters vs. markup:

Once a parser determines that all characters in a document are
legal, it must differentiate between markup text & character data.
Markup text is enclosed in angle brackets (< & >). Character data is
text between a start tag & end tag.
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White space, entity references & built-in entities:

Spaces, tabs, line feeds & carriage returns are characters
commonly called whitespace characters. An XML parser is required to
pass all characters in a document, including white space characters, to
the application using the XML document.
An application may consider white space characters either

significant or insignificant white space characters may be collapsed
into a single whitespace characters may be collapsed into a single
whitespace character or even removed entity. This process is called
normalization.
Note: Don’t use as a character data for the following symbols

& < > ‘ “ are reserved in XML
To use these characters in the content of an element or attribute

we must use entity references, which begin with an ampersand(&) and
end with a semicolon(;) By using entity references prevents XML
processors from misinterpreting character data as XML markup. XML
provides built-in entities for ampersand(&amp), left angle bracket (<lt),
right angle bracket (> gt), apostrophe (').
Ex: <message><&&gt</message>
Using Unicode in an XML document:

By using the Unicode in XML document, that which displays
Arabic words. Each Arabic character is represented by an entity
reference for an Unicode character.
Ex:
<?xml version=”1.0”?>
<!—fig, lang.xml-- >
<!DocType welcome system “lang.ddtd”>
<welcome>
<from>
<!—Arabic -- >
داي
&#1578㻲لأن د
<! – entity -- >
&#assoc;
</form>
<subject>
<! – welcome to Arabic subject -- >
أهلا
ًبكم
فيِعا
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لم
&text;
</subject>
</welcome>
ex:
<! – lang.dtd -- >
<!ELEMENT wecome(from,subject)>
<!ELEMENT from(#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT subject(#PCDATA)>
<!ENTITY assoc
“أسّشِ
<!ENTITY text
“اليون
markup: XML element markup consists of a start tag, content & an

end tag.
Ex: -<img src=”img.gif”>
it is correct in html. But not in XML.
In XML you have to write

<img src=”image.gif”></img>
This type of element is called an empty element, because it does

not contain content.
You can write like this also:
<img src=”image.gif”/>
forward slash (/) for termination.
Elements define structure. An element may or may not contain

content (i.e; child elements or character data). Attributes describe
elements. It may have zero, one or more attributes associated with it.
Attributes are placed within the elements start tag & attribute values
enclosed in quotes. Values contain letters, digits, underscore, hyphens
& periods. But they must begin with a letter or an underscore.
CDATA sections:
Sections of an XML document called CDATA section, it may
contain text, reserved characters & white characters. Here character
data in a CDATA section is not processed by the XML parser. A
common use of a CDATA section is for scripting code.
Syntax:
<![CDATA[
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//c++ comment
if(this  getX()<5&& value[0]!=3]
cerr<<thisdisplayError();
]]>
Ex: Normal for character data

<sample> if(this->getX() < 5 &&cerr<<this-
>displayError();
</sample>
CDATA sections can’t contain the text ]]>, because this is used to
terminate a CDATA section.
The Document Type Definition:

The remainder of this chapter focuses on the DTD—how to
structure a DTD and how to create a DTD for your documents. As
mentioned previously, the DTD acts as a rulebook that allows authors
to create new documents of the same type and with the same
characteristics as a base document. For example, suppose a DTD was
created for use by the medical community. Documents created with
this DTD could contain items such as a patient's name, medications,
medical history, and so on. The information could easily be read by any
medical institution that used an XML-based document system. This
system would not only provide a standardized document format for all
organizations, but it would provide a format to be used within
departments of a single organization. The same document format can
be used by doctors, nurses, administrative staff, pharmacists,
specialists, and others. Another DTD advantage, which will be
discussed shortly, is that a DTD can be modified to suit the needs of a
particular application. This is where the notion of sub classing comes
in.
DTD Structure:
A DTD can comprise two parts: an external DTD subset and an
internal DTD subset. An external DTD subset is a DTD that exists
outside the content of the document, which is usually the case when a
common DTD is used, as in the medical example above. An internal
DTD subset is a DTD that is included within the XML document. A
document can contain one or both types of subsets. If a document
contains both, the internal subset is processed first and takes
precedence over any external subset. This is beneficial when an author
is using an external DTD but wants to customize some parts of the DTD
for a specific application. We'll look at an example of this in the section
Class DTDs.
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If you want to include an internal DTD subset in your document,

you simply write it directly in the document type declaration. An
external DTD subset, however, must be included via a DTD reference,
which tells the processor where to find the external subset by
specifying the name of the DTD file. The DTD reference also contains
information about the creator of the DTD, about the purpose of the
DTD, and about the language used.
Creating a Simple DTD

Before we get into too much detail, let's create a document with
a simple DTD to see what one looks like.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE EMAIL [
<!ELEMENT EMAIL (TO, FROM, CC, SUBJECT, BODY)>
<!ELEMENT TO (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT FROM (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT CC (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT SUBJECT (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT BODY (#PCDATA)>
]>
<EMAIL>
<TO>Jodie@msn.com</TO>
<FROM>Bill@msn.com</FROM>
<CC>Philip@msn.com</CC>
<SUBJECT>My First DTD</SUBJECT>
<BODY>Hello, World!</BODY>
</EMAIL>
Element Declarations:
Each element declaration contains the element name and the
type of data the element contains, called its content specification,
which consists of one of four types:
A list of other elements, called the content model

 The keyword EMPTY
 The keyword ANY
 Mixed content
 More on the Content Model
The DTD in the previous example started with an element

declaration that contained the document's content model, as shown in
parentheses below:
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<!ELEMENT EMAIL (TO, FROM, CC, SUBJECT, BODY)>
The Email element contains only subelements, or child elements.

For each of the elements in the content model, a corresponding
element declaration must appear in the remainder of the DTD that
follows.
The Empty-Element Declaration:

To declare that an element cannot contain any content, you can
use the keyword EMPTY in the element declaration, as shown here:
<!ELEMENT TEST EMPTY>
A Test element in a document containing the above declaration

could never contain content and would be required to be an empty
element, such as <TEST/>. Although it might seem that empty
elements would not be useful, they can contain attributes that provide
meaningful content or they can provide specific functions in a
document. The <BR> tag in HTML is an example of an empty-element
tag. The <BR> tag tells an HTML processor to insert a line break in a
document, but the element never contains content.
The Any-Element Declaration: At the opposite end of the scale is

the ANY content specification. If an element declaration uses the
keyword ANY for the content specification, that type of element can
contain any content allowed by the DTD in any order. The any-element
declaration looks like this:
<!ELEMENT TEST ANY>
Mixed Content: The content specification can also be a single set of

alternatives in which the alternatives are separated by pipe symbols
(|). For example:
<!ELEMENT EXAMPLE (#PCDATA|x|y|z)*>
The use of #PCDATA; character data such as x, y, and z; the pipe

symbol (|); and the asterisk (*) are discussed in detail below.
Data Types:
XML stays relatively simple when it comes to including data
types, but some tricky issues are worth a look. In document content,
XML allows for parsed character data (declared with the keyword
#PCDATA, as shown above) and character data (declared with the
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keyword CDATA). Parsed character data is marked up character data—

that is, it contains markup tags. Character data is ordinary text that
can include characters normally reserved for markup. XML processors
assume that content in an XML file is parsed character data by default.
While parsed character data is usually used in the content of an
XML document, character data can be used when an author wants to
include data that does not get parsed. For example, examine the
usage of a character data section in the following document:
<LESSON>
<TITLE>Working with XML Markup</TITLE>
<EXAMPLE>
<![CDATA[<ELEMENT>A sample element</ELEMENT>]]>
</EXAMPLE>
</LESSON>
The data in the Example element will be displayed as

<ELEMENT>A sample element </ELEMENT>, and the markup tags will
not be parsed. As shown here, to declare a section as character data,
you must mark the beginning of the section with the sequence <!
[CDATA[ and mark the end with two closing brackets: ]]. Any data that
resides inside this set of markers will be interpreted as straight
unparsed data.
Structure Symbols:
XML uses a set of symbols for specifying the structure of an
element declaration. You have already seen some of these symbols,
such as the pipe and the comma. Table 4-1 identifies each of the
available symbols, the purpose of each symbol, an example of how
each is used, and what each symbol means.
Element Declaration Symbols

Sym Purpose Exam Meaning
bol ple
Pare Encloses a (content1, Element must
ntheses sequence, a group content2) contain the
of elements, or a sequence content1
set of alternatives and
content2.
Com Separates items in (content1, Element must
ma a sequence and content2, contain content1,
identifies the order content3) content2, and
in which they must content3 in the
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appear specified order.

Pipe Separates items in (content1| Element must
a group of content2| contain either
alternatives content3) content1,
content2,or
content3.
Question Indicates that an content1? Element might
mark item must appear contain content1. If
one time or not at content1does
all appear, it must
appear only once.
Aster Indicates that the content1* Element can contain
isk item can appear as content1. If it
many times as the appears, it can
author wants appear once or
more.
Plus Indicates that an content1+ Element must
sign item must appear contain content1 at
once or more least once, but it can
appear more than
once.
No Indicates that content1 Element must
symbol exactly one item contain content1.
must appear
Let's look at a simple example by adding to the content model

from our example document.
<!ELEMENT EMAIL (TO+, FROM, CC*, SUBJECT?, BODY?)>
This declaration indicates that:
The To element is required and can appear more than once.
The From element must appear exactly once. The Cc element is

optional, but it can appear one or more times. The Subject element is
optional, but it can appear only once if included. The Body element is
optional, but it can appear only once if included.
Attributes:
In addition to defining the structure of an element and the kind
of content it contains, you can associate attributes with an element.
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Attributes provide additional information about the element or the

content of that element. If you work with HTML, you are familiar with
attributes. Take, for example, the following HTML code:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Database Web Site</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<A HREF="http://mspress.microsoft.com">
Click here for a Web link
</A>
<BR>
<IMG SRC="Schemas2.gif" border="0" ALT="A Schema
Map">
</BODY>
</HTML>
The Anchor element (indicated by the <A> tag) and the Image
element (indicated by the <IMG> tag) both contain attributes: the
Anchor element contains the HREF attribute, and the Image element
contains the attributes SRC, BORDER, and ALT. These attributes
provide additional information of use mostly to the browser. Notice
that the Anchor element contains the content, Click here for a Web
link, but the Image element appears to be an empty element—it
contains no visible content. In reality, however, this is not entirely true.
While the element does not contain content, the SRC attribute is a
filename that tells the processor which file to display. So in this case, a
graphic file is displayed on the Web page. This example presents an
important aspect about attributes. Attributes can, and usually do,
contain important information that is not part of the content of the
element. This means that, while the results of the attribute are usually
visible, often the attribute itself is more important to the XML
processor than it is to the person viewing the content.
Attribute Declarations:
In XML, attributes are declared in the DTD using the following

syntax:
<!ATTLIST ElementName AttributeName Type Default>
Here <!ATTLIST> is the tag that identifies an attribute

declaration. The ElementName entry is the name of the element to
which the attribute(s) apply. The AttributeName entry, obviously, is the
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name of the attribute. The Type entry identifies the type of attribute
being declared. The Default entry specifies the default for the
attribute.
NOTE: The attribute declaration can be located anywhere in the DTD,

but keeping the attribute declaration close to the corresponding
element declaration can make the DTD easier for humans to read. You
can also include multiple attribute declarations for a single element. In
this case, the processor will combine all the declarations into one big
list. If the processor encounters more than one declaration for the
same attribute, only the first one will be counted.
Attribute Usage
Type
CDAT Only character data can be used in the attribute.
A
ENTIT Attribute value must refer to an external binary
Y entity declared in the DTD.
ENTITI Same as ENTITY, but allows multiple values
ES separated by white space.
ID Attribute value must be a unique identifier. If a
document contains ID attributes with the same value,
the processor should generate an error.
IDREF Value must be a reference to an ID declared
elsewhere in the document. If the attribute does not
match the referenced ID value, the processor should
generate an error.
IDREF Same as IDREF, but allows multiple values
S separated by white space.
NMTO Attribute value is any mixture of name token
KEN characters, which must be letters, numbers, periods,
dashes, colons, or underscores.
NMTO Same as NMTOKEN, but allows multiple values
KENS separated by white space.
NOTA Attribute value must refer to a notation declared
TION elsewhere in the DTD. Declaration can also be a list of
notations. The value must be one of the notations in
the list. Each notation must have its own declaration
in the DTD.
Enum Attribute value must match one of the included
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erated values. For example: <!ATTLIST MyAttribute

(content1|content2)>.
The final part of the attribute declaration is the default for the
attribute value. The default can come in one of four types. Table 4-3
shows the available attribute defaults.
Default Usage
#REQUI Every element containing this attribute must specify
RED a value for that attribute. A missing value results in
an error.
#IMPLIE This attribute is optional. The processor can ignore
D this attribute if no value is found.
#FIXED This attribute must have the value fixedvalue. If the
fixedvalue attribute is not included in the element, fixedvalue is
assumed.
default Identifies a default value for an attribute. If the
element does not include the attribute, the value
default is assumed.
Let's take a look at how attributes are used by adding some

attribute declarations to the DTD of the sample document:
<!DOCTYPE EMAIL [
<!ELEMENT EMAIL (TO+, FROM, CC*, BCC*, SUBJECT?,
BODY?)>
<!ATTLIST EMAIL
LANGUAGE (Western|Greek|Latin|Universal) "Western"
ENCRYPTED CDATA #IMPLIED
PRIORITY (NORMAL|LOW|HIGH) "NORMAL">
<!ELEMENT BCC (#PCDATA)>
<!ATTLIST BCC
HIDDEN CDATA #FIXED "TRUE">

]>
Unit - II XML
3
In this example, attributes have been added to two elements,

Email and the new element Bcc. The first attribute added to the Email
element is LANGUAGE. The LANGUAGE attribute can contain one of
several options. The attribute will contain the default value, Western, if
none other is specified. The next attribute in the Email element is
ENCRYPTED. This element must contain character data, and since the
default is #IMPLIED, the processor will simply ignore this attribute if no
value is specified. The last attribute in the Email element is PRIORITY.
The PRIORITY attribute can have any one of the three values NORMAL,
LOW, and HIGH. The default value is NORMAL.
The HIDDEN attribute has been included for the Bcc element.
The HIDDEN attribute is a CDATA type, and since it has a default of
#FIXED, the default value is specified following the keyword #FIXED.
This attribute must always have the value specified in the DTD, in this
case TRUE.
NOTE: Even though the attribute name is HIDDEN and the value is
TRUE, the XML processor does not actually know what that means. In
other words, the word "HIDDEN" has no special meaning in XML; it
simply happens to be the attribute name used. It will be up to the
application to know what to do with the attribute and its value.
How Attributes Work in an XML Document

Let's put the DTD together with the rest of the document to see
how the attributes look in the document.
<!DOCTYPE EMAIL [
BODY?)>
<!ATTLIST EMAIL
<!ATTLIST BCC
]>
Unit - II XML
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<EMAIL LANGUAGE="Western" ENCRYPTED="128"

PRIORITY="HIGH">
<FROM>Bill@msn.com</FROM>
<BCC>Naomi@msn.com</BCC>
<SUBJECT>My First DTD</SUBJECT>
<BODY>Hello, World!</BODY>
</EMAIL>
Note that the Email element in the code listing includes all of the
attributes and specifies a value for each one. In this code listing, the
Bcc element includes no attribute. Since the HIDDEN attribute has a
default of #FIXED, the processor will assume the value from the DTD.
If you've noticed that this document looks the same as the

document without attributes, you've been paying attention! This figure
illustrates the idea that attributes often provide more information to
the processor and the application than they provide to the user.
Although the attributes in this document can affect how the content
appears (such as inserting a different value for the LANGUAGE
attribute, for example), it is up to the application to make use of the
information that's provided by the document. Since none of the
attributes used in our example changed the appearance of the
content, there was no visible difference.
Entities:
You know that entities are used as containers for content and
that the content can reside in the XML document (as an internal entity)
or outside the document in an external file (an external entity). Most
entities must be declared in the DTD. (You'll recall that some
predefined entities are already built into XML and are used to display
characters normally used for markup.) Entity declarations follow the
same basic syntax used by other declarations:
<!ENTITY EntityName EntityDefinition>
Entities in the DTD can be parsed or unparsed. Parsed entities, or

text entities, contain text that becomes part of the XML document.
Unparsed entities, or binary entities, are usually references to an
external binary file. Unparsed entities can also be text that is not
parsable, so it is best to think of unparsed entities as items that are not
intended to be treated as XML.
Internal Entities:
Unit - II XML
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Internal entities are declared in the DTD and contain the content
that will be used in the document. This line adds an internal entity
called SIGNATURE to the example XML document:
<!ENTITY SIGNATURE "Bill">
This entity will be added to the DTD, and (as you will see in the
"Entity References" section later in this chapter) whenever that entity
is referenced in the document, it will be replaced with the content of
the entity (Bill).
External EntitIes: SYSTEM and PUBLIC Keywords

Here's an external entity declaration you can add to the DTD.
This entity references an external GIF file and will appear in the body
of the XML document:
<!ENTITY IMAGE1 SYSTEM "Xmlquot.gif" NDATA GIF>
Notice that the external entity declaration differs from the

internal entity declaration: it uses an additional keyword (SYSTEM)
following the entity name (IMAGE1).
NOTE External entities can also reference other XML files. For
example, if you were putting together a book in XML, the master book
document could use entity references to the chapters. An entity
reference might be <!ENTITY CHAP01 SYSTEM "Chapter1.xml">. Using
such a reference would greatly reduce the size of the master
document and allow the individual chapter files to be self-contained.
An external entity declaration can include the SYSTEM keyword

or the PUBLIC keyword. Many DTDs are developed locally—that is, they
are developed for a specific organization or business or they are used
only for a specific Web site. In this case, the SYSTEM keyword should
be used. The SYSTEM keyword is followed by a URI (Uniform Resource
Identifier) that tells the processor where to find the object referenced
in the declaration. In the example above, the filename was used
because the code is for local use. In the following declaration, the URI
is a Web address that points to the location of the referenced file:
<!ENTITY IMAGE1 SYSTEM
"http://www.XMLCo.com/Images/Xmlquot.gif" NDATA GIF>
Some DTDs are established standards that are available to a

wide range of users. The PUBLIC keyword should be used, followed by
the public identifier that the processor can use if a standards library is
Unit - II XML
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available. Following the public identifier is a URI, similar to the URI

used with the SYSTEM keyword in the preceding example. A
declaration that uses the PUBLIC keyword might look like this:
<!ENTITY IMAGE1 PUBLIC "-//XMLCo//TEXT Standard

images//EN"
"http://www.XMLCo.com/Images/Xmlquot.gif" NDATA GIF>
External Entities: Notations and Notation Declarations

Again, consider the entity declaration:
<!ENTITY IMAGE1 SYSTEM "Xmlquot.gif" NDATA GIF>
A notation (NDATA GIF) appears at the end of the declaration.

This notation tells the processor what type of object is being
referenced. At this point, if you simply added the entity declaration to
the DTD and ran it through a processor, you'd get an error like the
following:
Declaration `IMAGE1' contains reference to undefined

notation `GIF'.
The error results because the entity declaration is referencing a

binary file type and the processor has not been told what to do with
the binary file. Remember that this is an unparsed entity that the
processor cannot "understand." In this case, the notation must be
declared as a notation declaration. A notation declaration tells the
processor how to deal with a specific binary file type.
NOTE Although the information in a notation declaration will usually

identify a "helper" application, the XML specification does not require
this. The processor passes this information on to the processing
application; it doesn't care whether the application can understand it
or not. The information in the declaration could also be used for other
purposes, such as to provide a message to the application that could
then be displayed to the user.
Notation declarations follow this format:
<!NOTATION GIF SYSTEM "Iexplore.exe">
This declaration tells the processor that whenever it encounters

a GIF file in the DTD, it should use the Iexplore.exe program to process
the file.
Unit - II XML
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We'll add a simple entity declaration to the sample DTD:

<!DOCTYPE EMAIL [
BODY?)>
<!ATTLIST EMAIL
<!ATTLIST BCC
]>
The DTD now includes an entity declaration. But as with other
declarations, this is not much good unless it is used, or referenced, in
the actual XML document.
Entity References:
You'll recall from Chapter 3 that entity references use a specific
syntax within a document: &EntityName;. When a processor
encounters an entity reference in a document, the reference tells the
processor that it should replace that reference with the content
declared in the entity.
<!DOCTYPE EMAIL [
BODY?)>
<!ATTLIST EMAIL
<!ATTLIST BCC
Unit - II XML
3

]>
PRIORITY="HIGH">
<FROM>&SIGNATURE;@msn.com</FROM>
<SUBJECT>Sample Document with Entity
References</SUBJECT>
<BODY>
Hello, this is &SIGNATURE;.
Take care, -&SIGNATURE;
</BODY>
</EMAIL>
Notice that in this code, an entity reference to the entity
SIGNATURE appears wherever the word Bill should appear. Figure 4-4
shows how the document looks when it is processed and displayed.
To briefly demonstrate the power of entities, let's change the

SIGNATURE entity declaration to the following:
<!ENTITY SIGNATURE "Colleen">
When the document is processed, at each location in which the

SIGNATURE entity is referenced, the content will appear changed,
Parameter Entities:
Although parameter entities work in much the same way that
general entities work, they have one important syntactical difference.
Parameter entities use the percent symbol (%) in both the declaration
and the reference. In the entity declaration, the percent symbol follows
the keyword !ENTITY but precedes the entity name, as shown here.
(Note that a single space is required before and after the % symbol.)
<!ENTITY % ENCRYPTION
"40bit CDATA #IMPLIED
128bit CDATA #IMPLIED">
This entity can now be referenced elsewhere in the DTD. For example:
Unit - II XML
3

BODY?)>
<!ATTLIST EMAIL
ENCRYPTED %ENCRYPTION;
Notice that the parameter entity reference (%ENCRYPTION;) uses

the same basic format used by the general entity reference, except
that the % replaces the &. Also notice that a space is not required
following the % in the entity reference.
NOTE Parameter entities are restricted to the DTD. You cannot

reference a parameter entity within an XML document element.
As you can see, parameter entities can be a powerful way to

create your own shorthand in your DTDs and make them more concise
and better organized. These entities should be used with caution,
however, since they can create complexity within a document that
makes it difficult to manage. For example, you could reference several
other parameter entities inside a single parameter entity declaration.
As the author, you must be sure that those references actually point to
something and that the content is valid.
The IGNORE and INCLUDE Keywords:

The IGNORE and INCLUDE keywords can be used by authors to
turn portions of the DTD "on" or "off." IGNORE and INCLUDE are used
in the DTD to create conditions in the document that are suitable for
various purposes. For example, using IGNORE and INCLUDE allow an
author to test various structures while tracking the variations. IGNORE
and INCLUDE are used in much the same way that CDATA is used:
<![IGNORE [DTD section]]>

<![INCLUDE [DTD section]]>
Neither keyword can appear inside a declaration, and each DTD

section must include an entire declaration or a set of declarations,
comments, and white space. Here is an example of how the keywords
can be used:
<![IGNORE[<!ELEMENT BCC (#PCDATA)>

<!ATTLIST BCC
HIDDEN CDATA #FIXED "TRUE">]]>
<![INCLUDE[<!ELEMENT SUBJECT (#PCDATA)>]]>
Unit - II XML
3
This fragment tells the processor to ignore the Bcc element and
attribute list and to include the Subject element. As you look over this
code, you might think that the IGNORE keyword seems useful but that
the INCLUDE keyword seems unnecessary. You could accomplish the
same effect by eliminating the INCLUDE keyword. However, INCLUDE
proves its worth any time you want to quickly change what is being
included or ignored in the document. Consider the following code,
which changes both keywords into parameter entities and then places
content within the appropriate sections:
<!ENTITY % SECURE "IGNORE">

<!ENTITY % UNSECURE "INCLUDE">
<![%SECURE; [any number of declarations go here]]>
<![%UNSECURE; [any number of declarations go here]]>
In this case, the various declarations can be turned on or off

easily by changing their placement or by modifying the entity
declarations.
Processing Instructions:
Processing instructions (PIs) provide instructions for the
application that's processing the document. PIs usually appear in the
document prolog, but they can be placed anywhere in the XML
document. The most common PI is the XML declaration included at the
top of our sample XML documents:
PIs are written with the sequence <?, followed by the PI name,
followed by a value or instruction, and concluded with ?>. The name,
or PI Target, identifies which application should be looking at the PI.
See section 2.6 in the XML 1.0 specification for more details about PIs.
NOTE XML has reserved names beginning with the characters x, m,

and l for its own use. Apart from this restriction, PIs can be used to
send instructions to any application that is processing the document.
Here are examples of other PIs:

<?AVI CODEC="VIDEO1" COLORS="256"?>
<?WAV COMPRESSOR="ADPCM" BITS="8"
RESOLUTION="16"?>
Comments:
Unit - II XML
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Comments are one of a DTD's "miscellaneous" parts. Although

comments are not required, they are widely used for making a
document more readable to authors. You can add comments as a way
to explain the purpose of a certain section of the DTD, to indicate what
references mean, and for other purposes. Obviously, comments come
in handy as reminders of your coding intentions if you need to go back
to the DTD and make changes later or if another author works on the
document. Comments are not restricted to the DTD and can be used
throughout a document. Since comments benefit only the human
reader, any true XML processor will ignore them. Comments appear
between comment tags () and can include any combination of
text, markup, and symbols, except the combination of symbols that
make up the comment tags. The following boldface code shows how a
comment might look in a document:
<!DOCTYPE EMAIL [

BODY?)>
<!ATTLIST EMAIL
NOTE It is considered good practice to provide well-commented

documents and DTDs. Having said that, the sample code in this book
will not use many comments because of space considerations.
External DTDs
You've also probably noticed that the majority of the document
space is taken up by the DTD. You can separate documents and DTDs
to make them a bit easier to work with. After creating a separate DTD,
you can reference it within any document.
To separate the DTD portion of our sample XML document, you
simply cut the DTD portion and paste it into a new text file. The new
filename should have the extension .dtd.
Unit - II XML
3
BODY?)>
<!ATTLIST EMAIL
<!ATTLIST BCC
If you compare the internal DTD in the previous example with

this newly created external DTD, you'll find that they are exactly alike.
For this DTD to work, however, you must add a reference to it in the
sample XML document.
<!DOCTYPE EMAIL SYSTEM "Lst4_4.dtd">
PRIORITY="HIGH">
<FROM>&SIGNATURE;@msn.com</FROM>
<SUBJECT>Sample Document with External
DTD</SUBJECT>
<BODY>
Hello, this is &SIGNATURE;.
Take care, -&SIGNATURE;
</BODY>
</EMAIL>
Separating the DTD from the document greatly reduces the size
of the XML document file and provides some other benefits. Now that
the DTD is a separate file, it can be used in other documents by
anyone who has access to it. Another author can create a document
using the same structure with completely different content. And
because the new document would follow the DTD, it could be read by
any application that knows how to process that DTD.
Unit - II XML
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The XML-Data Schema Language:

It is important to note that any XML-Data schema is a well-
formed XML document and, as such, might also be a valid XML
document. The XML-Data language is based on the XML-Data DTD. A
document can be validated if it refers to this DTD, but simply
complying with the XML-Data specification will result in well-formed
XML, even if no DTD reference is made in the prolog.
NOTE As of this writing, it has not been decided by any standards

body where (or if) the XML-Data DTD will be posted. This will not
prevent individual documents from being validated against a schema,
however, even though the schema itself is not validated.
Schema Document Structure:

You already learned that a basic XML document is made up of a
prolog and a document element. An XML-Data schema document also
contains these components. The major difference between the two is
that a schema document contains no DTD. Instead, the structure for
the document is defined inside a Schema element, which is the
document, or root, element in a schema definition. The basic usage is
as shown below:
<Schema name="schemaname" xmlns="urn:schemas-
microsoft-com:xml-data">

<ElementType name="elementname"
content="contenttype"/>
</Schema>
NOTE:
The Schema element must be derived from the xml-data
namespace urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-data. It is not necessary to
declare the namespace in the schema prolog.
While it is generally preferred to make the xml-data namespace
the default namespace, it is not required. However, by making the xml-
data namespace the default, you can avoid having to prefix all the
definitions in a schema document. The schema document below, for
example, does not assume that the xml-data namespace is the default.
Using the prefix declared in the namespace declaration, the following
schema document is equivalent to the previous schema example.
<?xml:namespace ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-data"
prefix="s"?>
<s:Schema name="schemaname">
Unit - II XML
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<s:ElementType name="elementname"
content="contenttype"/>
</s:Schema>
In this chapter, we will assume that the xml-data namespace is
the default namespace. However, we must keep in mind that schema
declarations can have different scopes. That is, they might come in the
form of both top-level declarations and local-level declarations. The
scope of a declaration identifies where and how the declared item can
be used in the schema document.
Top-Level Declarations
Top-level declarations include any element types or attribute
types declared within the Schema element. Element or attribute types
declared at top-level scope can be referenced in the content
declaration of other element types in the same schema. For example,
in the schema that follows, the element type name is declared at the
top level and is referenced in the plant element type declaration.
<Schema name="wildflowers"
xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-data">
<ElementType name="name" content="textonly"/>
<ElementType name="plant">
<element type="name"/>
</ElementType>
</Schema>
Local-Level Declarations
A declaration that appears inside another declaration that is not
at the top level is considered local-level in scope. A local-level
declaration can be referenced only within the declaration in which it is
declared. For example, let's add a local-level attribute declaration to
the plant element type declaration.
<Schema name="wildflowers"
xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-data">
<ElementType name="name" content="textOnly"/>
<attribute name="bestseller" values="yes no"/>
</ElementType>
</Schema>
In this example, the attribute bestseller can be used only in the
plant element type declaration.
Unit - II XML
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Note: You have probably seen several new concepts in the examples
above that we have not discussed before. Don't worry. This brief
introduction is included here to give you some context for what comes
next.
Element Type Declarations

An element type is declared in an ElementType element. Each
element type declaration must include a name attribute, which
identifies the element type. For example, the element type declaration
below declares an element type by the name of plant.
<ElementType name="plant"/>
The type of content that an element can contain can be declared
with the content attribute. This constrains the element content only to
the type specified.
Content Type
Each type of element can contain one of four content categories:
empty, text only, subelements only, or a mixture of text and
subelements. The category is expressed as the value of the content
attribute in the element type declaration. Here are the possible values:
empty—cannot contain any content
textOnly—can contain text content only
eltOnly—can contain subelements only
mixed—can contain a mixture of text and subelements
In the example below, the plant element type can contain text
content only:
<ElementType name="plant" content="textOnly"/>
In addition to content constraints, an element type declaration
can also specify the pattern in which the elements in the declaration
can appear. This is done using the order attribute.
Content Order
The order attribute constrains the pattern for the types of
elements declared in an element type declaration. These are the
possible values:
seq—Elements must appear in the same sequential order as the
elements referenced in the element type declaration. This is the
default pattern for eltOnly content.
one—One subelement of the type declared in the element type
declaration must appear in the parent element.
all—An element of each type declared in the element type
declaration must appear as a subelement, but the subelements can
appear in any order.
Unit - II XML
3
many—Any of the subelements declared in the element type

declaration can appear and in any order. This is the default pattern for
mixed content.
Note: Order constraints in XML-Data do not apply to element

attributes. Attributes can appear in any order in the element, and each
attribute can appear only once within an element. This is consistent
with the XML 1.0 specification on attributes.
The example below shows the plant element type declaration,

containing subelements that must appear in sequential order.
<ElementType name="growth" content="mixed"/>
<ElementType name="salesinfo" content="mixed"/>
<ElementType name="plant" content="eltOnly"

order="seq">
<element type="growth"/>
<element type="salesinfo"/>
</ElementType>
Note that the content type of the plant element was constrained
to eltOnly. We did not have to explicitly declare the value of the order
attribute because seq is the default content order for eltOnly content.
The order attribute was included for illustrative purposes only.
Element content can be further constrained by grouping element
references via the Group element. The Group element supports the
order attribute with the same values used for the ElementType
element. Now let's create a new content model that uses a Group
element.
<ElementType name="zone" content="textOnly"/>
<ElementType name="light" content="textOnly"/>
<ElementType name="price" content="textOnly"/>
order="seq">
<group order="one">
<element type="zone"/>
<element type="light"/>
<element type="price"/>
</group>
</ElementType>
Unit - II XML
3
Here the plant element type must contain a name, and then
following the name, only one of the elements Zone, Light, or Price.
Note that if an order constraint is not declared for the group, the
default value will be the order for the enclosing element type
declaration. So in the example above, if an order was not specified for
the group, the default order value would have been seq.
Element and Group Quantities

As with XML DTDs, constraints can be placed on how many times
an element or a group may or may not appear in a document. The
minOccurs and maxOccurs attributes can be specified in Element and
Group elements. The minOccurs attribute specifies the minimum
number of times an element can appear. The maxOccurs attribute
specifies the maximum number of times an element can appear. Table
10-1 shows the possible value combinations for the minOccurs and
maxOccurs attributes and what they mean.
Meanings of Various Combinations of minOccurs and

maxOccurs
Number of times element or group

minOccurs MaxOccur
can appear
1 or 1 or 1 (Required)
unspecified unspecified
0 1 or 0 or 1 (Optional)
unspecified
greater greater than At least minOccurs times, but not more
than n than maxOccurs times
1
greater less than 1 0
than
1
0 "*" Any number of times
1 "*" At least once
greater "*" At least minOccurs times

than 0
any value 0 0
The default value for both the minOccurs and maxOccurs

attributes is 1. That is, unless otherwise specified, elements must
Unit - II XML
3
appear exactly once inside any given element type. Let's look at an
example of how this might work. (Here the group must appear at least
once, but it can appear more often than that.)

<ElementType name="zone" content="textOnly"/>
<ElementType name="light" content="textOnly"/>
<ElementType name="price" content="textOnly"/>
order="seq">
<group minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="*" order="one">
<element type="zone"/>
<element type="light"/>
<element type="price"/>
</group>
</ElementType>
Attribute Type Declarations

An attribute type is declared in an AttributeType element. XML-
Data supports the same attribute types that are available in the XML
1.0 DTD. XML-Data also supports other data types that are more like
those found in programming or database languages—as you'll see
below.
AttributeType Elements
As with the ElementType element, each AttributeType element
must specify a name. The example below declares an attribute type
named bestseller.
<AttributeType name="bestseller"/>
Attribute type declarations are made at the top level,

independent of element type declarations. They can then be
referenced in any element type declaration that the author wants. For
example, we'll use our bestseller attribute in an element type
declaration named plant.
<attribute type="bestseller"/>
</ElementType>
Unit - II XML
3
In this example, the attribute can now appear as part of the Plant
element in a document.
Default Values
An attribute type declaration or reference can also include a
default attribute, which indicates the default attribute value. For
example, in the schema below, the default attribute is included in the
attribute type declaration.
<AttributeType name="bestseller" default="yes"/>
<attribute type="bestseller"/>
</ElementType>
This specifies that the value of the default attribute will apply
everywhere that the attribute type is used in an element. If we change
the example as shown here
<attribute type="bestseller" default="no"/>
</ElementType>
the value of the default attribute will apply to the attribute only
when it is used inside the Plant element. If default attributes are
specified in both places, as shown here
<AttributeType name="bestseller" default="yes"/>
<attribute type="bestseller" default="no"/>
</ElementType>
the default attribute specified at the declaration level takes
precedence. So, using the above example, the default value yes would
apply everywhere the bestseller attribute is used, except when it
appears in the Plant element, where the default value no would apply.
Required Attribute
An attribute type declaration or reference can contain a required
attribute that identifies whether the attribute must have a value.
<attribute type="bestseller" default="no" required="yes"/>
</ElementType>
Here the bestseller attribute in the Plant element must have a
value. Since it is combined with the default attribute, bestseller will
always contain that value if no other is specified.
Data Types
Unit - II XML
3
Values for attributes and elements can be constrained as

instances of a specific data type. XML-Data supports a wider range of
data types than XML's 10 or so data types. In the same way that
schemas are defined from the xml-data namespace, data types are
defined from the datatypes namespace. This might appear in the
prolog as shown below:
<Schema name="wildflowers" xmlns="urn:schemas-
microsoft-com:xml-data"
xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-
00AA00C14882">
<AttributeType name="dateordered"/>
<attribute type="dateordered"/>
</ElementType>
</Schema>
To use the datatypes namespace, the namespace must be

declared as shown above. We will use the dt: prefix in our examples,
but you could use any other prefix and get the same result.
type Attribute
A data type is designated by referencing it using the type
attribute from the datatypes namespace. In the example below, we
specify a data type for the dateordered attribute type.
<AttributeType name="dateordered" dt:type="dateTime"/>

<attribute type="dateordered"/>
</ElementType>
The dateTime data type conforms to one of the supported data

types for attributes.
Attribute Data Types Table 10-2 shows the supported data types
for attributes.
Supported Attribute Data Types
Data Type XML Meaning

Unit - II XML
3
Name Equivalent
id ID Attribute value must be a unique
identifier. If a document contains
more than one id attribute with the
same value, the processor should
generate an error.
string PCDATA Only character data can be
used in the attribute.
entity ENTITY The attribute value must refer to an
entity.
entitie ENTITIES Same as entity, but allows multiple
s values separated by white space.
idref IDREF Value must be a reference to an id
attribute declared elsewhere in the
document.
idrefs IDREFS Same as idref, but allows multiple
values separated by white space.
nmtok NMTOKE Attribute value is any mixture of
en N name token characters, which must
be letters, numbers, periods, dashes,
colons, or underscores.
Nmto NMTOKE Same as nmtoken, but allows
kens NS multiple values separated by white
space.
enum ENUMER Attribute value must match one of
eration ATION the included values.
notati NOTATIO Attribute value must refer to a
on N notation.
Element Data Types
Here the below table identifies some of the more common

supported element data types. For a complete list of supported XML-
Data element data types, see Appendix B.
Supported Element Data Types

Data
Type Meaning
Name
boo 1 or 0.
Unit - II XML
3
lean
stri Character data.
ng
floa A signed, unsigned, whole, or fractional number.
t Essentially no limit on number of digits. Can contain an
exponent.
int An unsigned whole number, no exponent.
nu A signed, unsigned, whole, or fractional number.
mber Essentially no limit on number of digits. Can contain an
exponent.
uri Universal Resource Identifier.
uui Hexadecimal digits that represent octets. Optional
d hyphens should be ignored.
Data Type Constraints

Constraints can be placed on data type values. Use these
constraints to help further identify the nature of the data that an
element or attribute can contain.
min and max: The min and max attributes define inclusive lower and
upper limits for the data in an element or attribute. For example, the
attribute below can contain a minimum value of 0 and a maximum
value of 50.
<attribute type="inventory" dt:type="int" dt:min="0"
dt:max="50"/>
enumeration At times it might be necessary to enumerate values
in an element or attribute. This is defined with the enumeration data
type and the values attribute.
<ElementType name="growinginfo">
<datatype dt:type="enumeration" dt:values="sun partialsun
shade"/>
</ElementType>
The values to be enumerated are separated by white space.
MaxLength: The maxLength attribute specifies the length of a value

in number of characters. In the example below, the value for the Name
element can be no more than 30 characters in length.
<ElementType name="name" dt:type="string"
dt:maxLength="30"/>
Unit - II XML
3
</ElementType>

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Unit - II XML

Xml(Extendible Markup Language) :

1. Fixed set of tags

So HTML is Not suited for handling

• Documents may be better organized into structures to allow for

Key Features of XML

Relationship between HTML and XML

Actually XML was not such a new invention as it may appear. In

Why Do We Need XML ?

• Distributed information systems

The importance of XML roots not only in its inherent properties

The architecture comprises the following components:

Programming API’s: DOM and SAX, these are required to build

Layout and hyperlinks: standardize the language constructs needed

Metadata: as XML data will be exchanged and processed in many

In addition standardized applications for specific domains are

• URIs are used just as unique identifiers, nothing else

XML namespaces are a convention to distinguish different

Namespaces are important in order to provide universally agreed

XML allows document authors to create their own tags, naming

These two subject elements can be differentiated using

Both school and medical are namespace prefixes. Namespace

Each namespace prefix is tied to uniform resource identifier (URI)

Document authors can create their own namespace prefixes.

<image:description>A Funny Picture</image:description>

To ensure that a namespace is unique, the document author

Once this default namespace is in place, child elements that are

Parser & well formed XML documents:

 XML is case sensitive.

A DOM based parser builds a tree structure containing the XML

 IE5 have built-in XML parser MSXML

Parsing an XML document with MSXML

An XML document contains data, not formatting information.

If the document is well formed, the parser makes the documents

IE5 (changes) formats the data by applying a style sheet that

Characters vs. markup:

White space, entity references & built-in entities:

An application may consider white space characters either

Note: Don’t use as a character data for the following symbols

To use these characters in the content of an element or attribute

Using Unicode in an XML document:

markup: XML element markup consists of a start tag, content & an

In XML you have to write

This type of element is called an empty element, because it does

You can write like this also:

Elements define structure. An element may or may not contain

Ex: Normal for character data

The Document Type Definition:

If you want to include an internal DTD subset in your document,

Creating a Simple DTD

A list of other elements, called the content model

The DTD in the previous example started with an element

<!ELEMENT EMAIL (TO, FROM, CC, SUBJECT, BODY)>

The Email element contains only subelements, or child elements.

The Empty-Element Declaration:

<!ELEMENT TEST EMPTY>

A Test element in a document containing the above declaration

The Any-Element Declaration: At the opposite end of the scale is

<!ELEMENT TEST ANY>

<!ELEMENT EMAIL (TO+, FROM, CC, BCC, SUBJECT?,